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CHARLES A.COOK 








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Class 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



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Stewardship 

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flftieeions 



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Cbarles H* Cooft 

Butbor of 

Systematic Giving 

Stewardship 

The Holy Spirit in Church Finances 

Helpful Portions for the Prayer Life 



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Published by the 

Hmertcan Baptist publication Society 

for the 

JBaptist ffotwaro movement tor 
mitsstonats Boucatton 

Stewardship Department 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cocies Received 

JAN 11 1909 

Copyritffit Entry 
CLASS 0_ XXc, No, 



COPY 3 



J 



Copyright 1908 by 
A. J. ROWLAND, Secretary 



Published December, 1908 









TO 

TTbe Cbristtan J£>ouna people of 
tbe XTwentietb Centura 

CALLED TO BE STEWARDS OF 
THE MANIFOLD GRACE OF GOD 
AT A TIME WHEN UNPARALLELED 
OPPORTUNITIES CALL FOR THE 
FULLEST CONSECRATION O F 
PERSONALITY AND POSSESSIONS 
TO THE WORK OF MISSIONS 
BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD 

THIS BOOK 

IS DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 



The great work of missions, now pressing 
upon the church, will never be adequately sup- 
ported until God's people fully realize their priv- 
ileges and obligations as Christian stewards. Mis- 
sions cannot exist without stewardship. At the 
same time, there can be no true stewardship of 
personality or possessions that does not make Chris- 
tian missions, at home and abroad, its supreme 
object. Stewardship and missions are therefore 
linked together by the Spirit of God, and what God 
hath joined together let not man put asunder. 

The financial problems of the kingdom of God 
cannot be settled by limiting their discussion to 
the question of giving. The emphasis must be 
shifted from giving to stewardship. Giving will 
never be what it ought to be until it rests squarely 
on a stewardship basis. The privileges and respon- 
sibilities of Christian stewardship must be properly 
understood before giving will be dignified into a 
sacred service, regarded as an essential of a normal 
Christian life, and lifted above the multitude of 
ignoble influences of expediency, convenience, and 
selfishness that have confined it to the narrow and 
shallow channels of weakness and insufficiency. 

7 



8 Preface 

When men see that they are stewards for God in 
all the relations of life into which they enter there 
will be larger and better giving, and the financial 
problems of the kingdom, which are now so per- 
plexing, will be settled. 

In preparing this book the author has freely used 
extracts from his booklet, entitled " Stewardship." 
Most of the book is, however, new. Much of the 
material was collected while the author was engaged 
in conducting a special campaign of education in 
the principles of Christian stewardship in his own 
denomination. 

Chas. A. Cook. 

Bloomfield, N. J. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Pagb 

I. The Call to Study Stewardship . . ... n 

II. Stewardship Defined 25 

III. Stewardship in Acquisition 41 

IV. Stewardship in Money Using 63 

V. Stewardship in Giving 85 

VI. Stewardship and Tithing . . .115 

VII. Stewardship Methods in the Church . . .137 
VIII. Stewardship Possibilities and Rewards . .157 



THE CALL TO STUDY STEWARDSHIP 



Our mission is part of the work of Jesus Christ. Christ 
cannot save the world unless you and I help him. We shall 
never see the world evangelized while we spend twenty 
times as much on ourselves as on missions. It is just as 
incumbent on us to labor to earn for giving on six days 
as to rest on the seventh day. You cannot eliminate the 
spirit of giving without eliminating Christianity itself. It 
is a crime for the head of the family to do all the giving. 
It is a part of each person's worship and life. 

Every two dollars wasted by a Christian means that 
somewhere in this world some one goes unreached. Self- 
sacrifice is the first law of grace. Before every purchase 
we need to ask, " Is this the thing for a person to buy 
who is living for the evangelization of the world ? " 

— /. Campbell White. 

Great as is the need of more missionaries for " the evan- 
gelization of the world in this generation," there is a greater 
present need in the home land of more men and women in 
so-called secular callings who are practising the Chris- 
tian life. A band of such Christians, no larger than the 
American volunteer army in the recent Spanish war, 
living for Christ and his kingdom on earth, putting their 
personal and family expenses upon a missionary basis, and 
using the balance of their income for God, would bring 
to the battle those reenforcements and supplies that would 
turn the tide of comparative defeat into victory and 
speedily usher in the kingdom for which we pray. 

— Charles K. Ober. 

Our young people need some old-fashioned preaching on 
Christian stewardship. They are simply playing with the 
question of their relation to Almighty God in the matter 
of property; and every one knows it who investigates the 
subject of giving. s. Earl Taylor. 



THE CALL TO STUDY STEWARDSHIP 

" If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples ; 
and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free" (John 8 : 31,32). 

THERE has been a remarkable response to the Mission Study 
r Inspiring 

call to study missions. Mission-study classes Interest 

have become popular, and many thousands of church 
members, especially of the young" people, have 
earnestly considered the conditions and needs of the 
unevangelized populations, both at home and abroad, 
and have been awakened to a new interest in the 
great work of missions. The wonderful triumphs of 
the gospel in the past, and the marvelous oppor- 
tunities of the present for still greater achievements, 
have inspired many to a new consecration to God's 
world-work. The interest thus awakened, however, 
should not only become more general, but should be 
more definitely turned into channels of practical ac- 
tivity for the evangelization of the world. Doctor 
Chivers used to say, " The surest way to petrify a 
human heart is to awaken feeling and give it nothing 
to do." It will always be necessary for the church to 
study missions, and even with all the splendid 
courses of study now being furnished, together with 

13 



14 Stewardship and Missions 

the abounding store of information and inspiration 
being lavishly poured forth in the missionary maga- 
zines and religious papers, it will be difficult to keep 
pace with the ever-growing activities of this mis- 
sionary age. But what if this vast flood of knowl- 
edge only awakens feeling and does not issue in 
devoted service? Surely it would have been better 
for the church not to have known its privileges and 
opportunities than to know and not do. " To him 
that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it 
is sin " (James 4 : 17). 

A Related It is fitting, therefore, that contemporaneous with 
the study of missions there should be a faithful 
study of the vitally related subject of Christian 
stewardship. 

A Needed Through a proper consideration of this subject 

ixCVlVfll 

the human heart will learn how to turn to account 
for the kingdom of God all the powers of the 
awakened emotions and so save the life from dead- 
ening paralysis. All this increased knowledge of 
missions, and all the stirring of our feelings thereby, 
will be powerless and largely profitless, unless these 
shall be accompanied by such a practical stewardship 
of personality and possessions as shall adequately 
provide both men and means for the utmost prose- 
cution of the work. A revival of stewardship is 
the need of the hour. That revival can come 
only as the principles of Christian stewardship are 
thoroughly understood and God's people know how 
to put them into practice in their everyday lives. 



The Call to Study Stewardship 



15 



The call comes therefore to Christian men and 
women, young and old, rich and poor, pastors and 
laymen, to devote themselves to an earnest and 
faithful consideration of this subject. There are 
many facts and conditions which emphasize this call. 

The church has largely lost the consciousness of 
its stewardship of the manifold grace of God. 
God's people do not realize that they are stewards. 
Many live as though they were owners instead of 
trustees. They fail to do their duty as stewards, not 
because they are unwilling to do what they know 
God wants them to do, but because they have never 
been clearly taught what their duty is. There are 
congregations in which no one could recall a single 
instance in which the privileges and responsibilities 
of Christian stewardship were proclaimed from the 
pulpit. Where the people do not know the truth 
they cannot be expected to practise it. The develop- 
ment of a sense of stewardship throughout the 
church is essential to the success of the larger move- 
ments for the extension of the kingdom in which 
the church is now called upon to engage. 

This subject goes to the very bottom of the prob- 
lem of missions both as to men and means. We 
are not simply stewards of money, we are stewards 
of the gospel. A proper recognition of that steward- 
ship involves the consecration of personality to the 
spread of the gospel, and thus the meeting of the 
need for men. Many can discharge their obligations 
as stewards of personality only by going into the 



Stewardship 

Not 

Taught 



Meeting the 

Missionary 

Problem 



16 Stewardship and Missions 

field to preach the gospel. Others can discharge 
their obligations only as they consecrate their powers 
to a faithful stewardship of wealth in the interest 
of the gospel. Mere appeals for either men or 
money will not suffice. We must get beneath the 
surface of the needs and conditions of humanity 
and understand that there are great and vital prin- 
ciples by which we should be actuated. A study of„ 
Christian stewardship will reveal these principles 
to us. Here we will find a motive for missions that 
will meet every need and emergency of the great 
work. 
THe This call to study the principles of Christian 
County stewardship is emphasized by the fact that no 
country in the world has been so highly favored with 
continuous and abounding prosperity as the United 
States. It is by far the wealthiest nation in the 
world to-day. It is almost impossible to realize how 
rapidly, and to what an enormous amount, wealth 
has increased in this country in recent years. While 
the population increased from 1880 to 1900, fifty- 
two per cent., the wealth increased in the same 
period over one hundred and two per cent. The 
per capita wealth increased in that time from eight 
hundred and fifty dollars to one thousand one hun- 
dred and sixty-four dollars and seventy-nine cents, 
and now amounts to fully one thousand four hun- 
dred dollars. The wealth of the country has more 
than doubled in twenty years. It has quadrupled in 
thirty years. While the population of the United 



The Call to Study Stewardship ij 

States increased three and one-half times from 1850 
to 1900, the wealth increased fourteen times. " The 
United States added vastly more to her wealth in 
the last decade of the nineteenth century than was 
accumulated between the discovery of America and 
the Civil War" {John R. Mott). A study of the 
tables of the census bureau of the country concern- 
ing the growth of wealth will reveal some surprising 
facts. 

Into the hands of the Christian men and women Christians 
of the country there has come a full share of this y 

vast increase of wealth. It is estimated that the 
Protestant Christians of the country have in their 
possession at the present time (1908) thirty billion 
dollars. If only one per cent, of this were devoted 
to the Lord Jesus to help him save the world, there 
would be at his disposal three hundred million 
dollars, an amount sufficient to meet the entire ex- 
pense for a period of ten years of all the missionary 
work, both at home and abroad, now being done by 
American Christians at the present rate of giving. 

This great increase of wealth is attended by many Perils 
perils. The more money men get the more they 
want, until the love of money takes full possession of 
their hearts. Through the love for money men's 
hearts become sordid, selfish, grasping, and as hard 
and indifferent toward God as the gold and silver 
after which they strive. " They that will be rich 
fall into temptation and a snare." Some one has 
said about riches : 

B 



i8 



Stewardship and Missions 



The Love of 
Money 



A Dangerous 
View 



Prosperity 
Tending 
to Ruin 



A Timely 

Warning 



" There is too often a burden of care in getting 
them, a burden of anxiety in keeping them, a burden 
of temptation in using them, a burden of guilt in 
abusing them, a burden of sorrow in losing them, a 
burden of account at last to be given up for possess- 
ing and either improving or misimproving them. 

" Our age is so drunk with the love of money that 
anything which does not pan out in cold cash has 
to take a back seat" {"Christianity and the Social 
Crisis," Rauschenbusch ) . 

" The passion for money which has seized upon 
men is appalling. It is found in every community, 
and is blasting lives of largest promise. Young 
men and women are growing up with the conviction 
that money is the summum bonum of life" (The 
Standard). 

" This nation has gone money mad. For ten 
years this land has enjoyed material prosperity 
such as the world has never seen, and during that 
time this madness has come upon us in full force. 
We have forgotten the commandment, ' Thou shalt 
not steal,' and we are taking the position that it does 
not matter how money is obtained so long as it is 
got. We cannot continue in this road indefinitely 
and secure the continuance of free institutions. The 
dangers of peace will destroy this country at the 
present rate just as certainly as might a disastrous 
war" (Governor Hanly). 

Some time ago the " Ram's Horn " had a cartoon 
in which Uncle Sam was sitting at a table feasting 



The Call to Study Stewardship 19 

upon fruit and wine, which was being handed him by 
a richly dressed woman named Luxury. In the back- 
ground was the figure of a citizen of ancient Rome, 
whose hand pointed to ruined walls and broken 
columns in the distance, while he said to the feasting 
guest : " Beware of Luxury, she was once my 
mistress." This warning is exceedingly timely. 
Abounding national prosperity has in more than one 
instance resulted in excessive luxuriousness of liv- 
ing to the weakening and downfall of national great- 
ness and power. The feasting Belshazzar has many 
times been weighed in the balances and found want- 
ing, and had his kingdom taken away from him and 
given to another. Doctor Josiah Strong says: 

" Increasing wealth will only prove the means of 
destruction, unless it is accompanied by an increas- 
ing power of control, a stronger sense of justice, 
and a more intelligent comprehension of its obliga- 
tions. . . Nations in their beginnings are poor ; pov- 
erty is favorable to hardihood and industry ; industry 
leads to thrift and wealth; wealth produces luxury, 
and luxury results in enervation, corruption, and 
destruction. This is the historic round which 
nations have run." 

" If we permit the people of this republic to get President 
before their minds the view that material well-being, y°°^ * s 
carried to an ever higher degree, is the one and 
only thing to be striven for, we are laying up for 
ourselves not only trouble but ruin" {Theodore 
Roosevelt). 



20 



Stewardship and Missions 



Paul's View 



A Safeguard 
Proposed 



The 

Missionary 

Age 



" They that are minded to be rich fall into a 
temptation and a snare and many hurtful and foolish 
lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdi- 
tion. For the love of money is a root of all kinds 
of evil, which some reaching after have been led 
astray from the faith, and pierced themselves 
through with many sorrows " (Paul, i Tim. 6 : o, 

10). 

These are words of warning which we do well 
to heed. A wide-spread recognition of the obliga- 
tions of stewardship and the faithful discharge of 
those obligations is the only safeguard against the 
evils that threaten to come in with abounding 
wealth. It is a time for the church everywhere to 
be awakened to a most intense consciousness of her 
increased responsibility through increasing pros- 
perity. A thousand evils must come in if in con- 
nection with this prosperity there is not a clear 
understanding by God's people of their stewardship 
for him. Surely, therefore, it is a time when Chris- 
tian men and women, especially those who are 
just entering upon the duties and responsibilities 
of life, should give themselves up to a diligent and 
prayerful study of this great subject. 

The magnitude and urgency of the present mis- 
sionary opportunity also intensely emphasizes this 
call to study. The present has been called the mis- 
sionary age of the church. The inauguration and 
progress of the missionary enterprise during the 
past century has been the basis of this characteri- 



The Call to Study Stewardship 21 

zation. To-day it is not what the church has done or 
is doing, so much as it is the marvelous and match- 
less opportunities to do beyond anything that has 
yet been undertaken^ or even thought of, which, 
more than anything else, makes this peculiarly the 
greatest missionary age the church has ever known. 

We are most assuredly in the beginning of one of An Imperative 
the most wonderful epochs in all the history of the ^ 
church. Nothing like it has ever before been known. 
The nations of earth were never so ready for the 
gospel as they are to-day. In five years the mis- 
sionary opportunity has increased a hundredfold. 
Millions of people are accessible now who were not 
a short time ago. Never were there so many open 
doors and urgent calls for a great forward move- 
ment of universal evangelization as now. One's 
utmost imagination cannot overdraw the splendor 
and magnitude of the present pressing opportunity. 
It is a time too, when the church is abundantly 
able to enter every one of these open doors and give 
the gospel to every creature. It is a time, therefore, 
for redeemed men and women the world over, and 
especially in this highly favored land, to realize 
that a stewardship of the gospel has been committed 
to them for the benefit of all men everywhere, and 
with absoluteness of living and loving consecration, 
and with unquenchableness of holy zeal be true to 
their stewardship of personality and possessions, and 
in this generation give the whole gospel to the whole 
world. In such a time as this it is imperative that 



22 Stewardship and Missions 

men and women should know their stewardship. 
How can they, unless they determine to diligently 
learn the will of God in this respect? 
A Call to This call to study the subject of Christian stew- 
oung eope ar( j s hip comes especially to young people. It needs, 
of course, to be studied by the great body of Chris- 
tians. Multitudes of men and women, whose char- 
acters and habits have become somewhat thoroughly 
fixed, would be greatly benefited and blessed if they 
could be led into a new vision of their inestimable 
privileges as stewards for God, and should surrender 
to a new consecration to practise the principles of 
stewardship. Many indeed of the more mature 
Christians have in these recent years come into 
richer experiences and greater usefulness through 
a new apprehension of the fact that they were verily 
stewards of the manifold grace of God. How 
greatly many of these wish they had seen their 
privileges and obligations earlier in life. How much 
more they might have accomplished for Christ. It 
is exceedingly important, therefore, that the young 
people of the church should learn what is involved 
in living their lives as Christian stewards, and when 
habits are being formed, and character is being de- 
veloped, should allow this subject to have a prom- 
inent place in their minds and hearts as a mighty 
molding power. Upon the young people of the 
present the burdens of the great work of the king- 
dom of God must soon fall. From their ranks must 
come the pastors, missionaries, teachers, and leaders 



The Call to Study Stewardship 23 

of the future. Into their hands will come the thirty- 
billions of dollars now in the hands of the Protestant 
church-membership of this country. The boys and 
girls of to-day will be the millionaires of to-morrow. 
Whether they will be better stewards for God and 
have a larger share in the great business of world- 
wide evangelization will depend on whether they 
come into a clearer and fuller appreciation of the 
fact that they are stewards. 



QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER I 

Aim : To Realize the Necessity for a General and 
Thorough Study of Christian Stewardship 

1. What should be a marked result of the new interest in 

the work of missions? 

2. What danger threatens the church should this increased 

knowledge not be followed by larger service? 

3. What is necessary in order to make the new knowledge 

of missions of practical value ? 

4. Show how Christian stewardship is vitally related to 

the work of missions. 

5. Why do not Christians generally realize their steward- 

ship? 

6. In what respects does Christian stewardship help solve 

the problems of missions? 

7. Why is it not enough to know the needs and condi- 

tions of the nations in order to move us to largest 
service for them? 

8. State some facts about the wealth of the United States. 

9. Are Christian enterprises for the salvation and up- 

lifting of men receiving a full share of this increase 
of wealth? 



24 Stewardship and Missions 

10. Name some of the perils that accompany the increase of 

riches. 
ii. While the national life is imperiled by abounding 

wealth, in what ways is the church in danger? 

12. How may the church be safeguarded against these 

evils ? 

13. Describe the present missionary opportunity. Give 

facts as to conditions at home and abroad. 

14. What bearing should the fact of these opportunities 

have upon our attitude to the subject of Christian 
stewardship ? 

15. Why should young people be especially interested in 

this study? 



II 

STEWARDSHIP DEFINED 



As between me and my fellow-men, what I hold belongs 
to me, and I have a right to defend my title to it; but as 
between me and God, it belongs to him ; and because of his 
ownership of all things, he has the right to determine to 
whom he will entrust his wealth, how long they shall 
retain it, the terms on which they shall hold it, the uses 
they shall make of it, and when and what kind of a 
settlement they shall make to him. If the landlord and 
the money-lender, whose titles to their property are 
relative only, have this right, how much more God, whose 
title is absolute. The tenant does not dictate to the land- 
lord what crops he shall raise nor what rent he shall pay; 
neither does the borrower decide what interest he shall 
pay to the lender. A man has no more right to determine 
the terms and conditions of his stewardship than he has 
to determine the terms and conditions of his admission 
into the kingdom of heaven. This prerogative belongs to 
God, and in his Holy Word he has clearly set them forth. 

— R. L. Davidson. 



II 

STEWARDSHIP DEFINED 

"Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, 
and stewards of the mysteries of God. Here, moreover, it 
is required in stewards that a man be found faithful " 
(i Cor. 4 : I, 2). 

"According as each hath received a gift, ministering 
it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold 
grace of God" (1 Peter 4 : 10). 

CHRISTIAN stewardship is more than a ques- Forcing the 
tion of Christian giving. The full require- m 
ments of stewardship cannot be met by the most ex- 
cellent methods or systems of giving that may be 
devised by the individual or put into operation by 
the church. We shall never reach a solution of the 
financial problems of the kingdom of God by con- 
fining our attention to this one phase of stewardship. 
By forcing the plant we may gather the fruit the 
sooner and in goodly quantities, but the forced plant 
will never do so well again. What we need to do is 
carefully to cultivate the roots, giving time to the 
process, so that the plant shall be constantly and 
richly nourished, and then the fruit will not only be 
abundant, but there will be a never-failing supply. 
By pressing the question of giving and placing all 

27 



28 



Stewardship and Missions 



Getting 

Down to 

Foundations 



A Definition 

and 

Illustration 



the emphasis there, without teaching the funda- 
mental principles of Christian stewardship, we force 
the plant. By going back to those fundamental 
principles and rooting and grounding the people in 
them, we cultivate the roots and secure permanent 
and adequate results. 

The whole problem of finances in connection with 
the Lord's work needs to be worked out on a new 
basis. We must get below the surface. We must 
get back to first principles. We must see the ground 
on which God has placed the whole matter of our 
obligation in the money affairs of his kingdom, and 
from that foundation we must build up the entire 
structure. It has been said that " the supreme need 
of the hour, next to the outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit, is that the church should be set right in her 
theory of Christian giving." It would be a larger 
truth to say that the supreme need of the hour is 
that the church should come to an intelligent appre- 
hension of her entire relation to the acquisition, pos- 
session, and use of money. We must get back of 
the question of giving. How can I discharge my 
obligations to God as his steward? is a far greater 
question than, How much of my income should I 
give to the Lord? 

A steward is " a person entrusted with the man- 
agement of estates or affairs not his own." A 
steward is a trustee. Stewardship is trusteeship. A 
steward administers what belongs to another. Of 
Abraham's faithful steward it is said, " All the 



Stewardship Defined 29 

goods of his master were in his hand." The pos- 
sessions which the steward has are delegated posses- 
sions. They are committed to him in trust as the ten 
pounds were committed to the ten servants in the 
parable. " A certain nobleman went into a far 
country to receive for himself a kingdom and to 
return. And he called his ten servants and delivered 
them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I 
come" (Luke 19 : 12-13). ^ n tne use °^ those 
pounds the servants acted only as stewards. Not one 
of them thought of the pound which he had as his 
own. Each man at the accounting spoke of the 
money as the master's property, saying, " Thy 
pound." Even the unfaithful servant, who kept the 
pound laid away in a napkin, freely acknowledged 
his master's ownership of it. The pounds were not 
a gift, but a trust. The servants, therefore, were 
not owners, but stewards. 

The great duty of the steward is to make the best The 
possible use of that which has been committed to rj) uty 
him, not for himself, but for the owner. He is to 
have the proprietor's interests and honor always in 
view. The question, " In what way can I best serve 
my master with what he has placed in my keeping? " 
should govern all his actions. Appropriation for his 
own use or benefit, of that which has been placed in 
his hand, except what is allowed for his necessary 
support, is robbery. " Will a man rob God?" 
(Mai. 3:8). "It is required in stewards that a 
man be found faithful " ( 1 Cor. 4:2). 



30 Stewardship and Missions 

The a steward is accountable for what has been com- 
Responsibility mitted to him. He is to manage, or administer it, 
in the interests of the owner. To forget this, and 
to appropriate and use what God has entrusted to 
him for himself, is no less a crime than for the 
cashier of a bank to appropriate its funds for his 
own use and pleasure. As in the parable of the 
pounds, the day of reckoning with the stewards will 
come. In that day judgment will be passed upon 
the ministry of the steward according to the measure 
in which he has faithfully managed the substance 
which has come into his hands in the interest of the 
owner. Whether he has held all property and 
wealth as a trust from God, or has called it his own ; 
whether he has wasted it in foolish expenditures, or 
has withheld it in vainglorious hoarding; whether 
he has, like Ananias, kept back part of the price, or 
has made a full surrender of both himself and the 
property committed to him by God; are questions 
that will enter into the final accounting to which 
every steward must come. 
An^Office of " Stewardship may then be understood to mean 
the tenure of an office of high trust and responsi- 
bility in the^nterest of the one from whom the com- 
mission has been received, and for whose exclusive 
benefit it is administered. There is in this, first, the 
suggestion of occupancy. The steward is in full 
possession and control. He stands in the place of 
the owner, and is clothed with his rights and duties 
in his absence. Second, responsibility is implied. 



High Trust 



Stewardship Defined 31 

The steward is to care for the estate, keeping it in 
good order and condition, guarding it against all 
depredation and waste, and improving every op- 
portunity for advancement and profit. Third, free- 
dom of action is implied in order that the steward 
may administer his trust with fidelity, wisdom, and 
enterprise, which are essential to the proper dis- 
charge of the duties of his office. Fourth, there is 
accountability. The occupancy of the steward, 
though it may be long continued and uninterrupted, 
is, nevertheless, temporary. It must at some time 
come to an end. He is the servant of his Lord, hold- 
ing his position as a tenant at will, ready at any 
time to surrender his trust, and give a full and just 
account of its administration to him from whom he 
received it. He must remember that he is not only 
the custodian of his Lord's property, he is also in 
some measure the guardian of his honor. If there 
be unfaithfulness, the estate will suffer loss; and 
if there be maladministration, the good name of 
the owner will be impeached " (E. M. Thresher). 

Our stewardship is primarily a stewardship of the Stewardship 
gospel. In 1 Cor. 9 : 17 the Apostle Paul says, "A - mcusl ve 
stewardship of the gospel is committed unto me." 
In Eph. 3 : 2 he says, " If so be that ye have heard 
of the stewardship of that grace of God which was 
given me to you-ward." Every believer is a steward 
of the manifold grace of God. Not simply those 
who are called to be pastors, or evangelists, or mis- 
sionaries, but all believers. This stewardship of the 



32 Stewardship and Missions 

gospel is all-inclusive. It takes in all we are, all we 
do, all we have, and all we acquire. It has many 
parts. > There is the stewardship of personality, the 
stewardship of all the faculties and powers with 
which God has been pleased to endow us. We are 
to be good stewards of personality in order that 
we may be good stewards of the gospel. That is, we 
are to use the powers God has entrusted to us for 
the furthering of his cause and kingdom. There is 

% the stewardship of time. Time is God-entrusted. 
We have no right to do as we please with it. We 
are to use it as a part of our one great stewardship 
of the manifold grace of God for the good of men. 

//There is the stewardship of opportunity, and of 
privileges, and of every blessing that may come into 
our lives. With all these there is the stewardship 

A* of property or wealth. These are all parts of the 
stewardship of the gospel which has been so defi- 
nitely committed to the church and to every believer 
in the church. 
The Our faithfulness in this stewardship hinges at the 
ivo-poin mone y point. The man who is true to God as his 
steward in the acquisition and use of wealth, who 
goes into business or wage-earning as God's stew- 
ard, there definitely to adjust his daily activities to 
the great business of the kingdom of his Lord and 
Master Jesus Christ, will be faithful in his steward- 
ship all along the line. He will be a faithful steward 
of personality, time, opportunity, and all else, for 
a man cannot be true to the resolve to be faithful in 



Stewardship Defined 33 

his stewardship of wealth in the interest of the 
gospel without being true in all these other respects. 
It is exceedingly important, therefore, that what is 
involved in the stewardship of wealth should be 
clearly understood. What is involved? 

First, the recognition of the great truth of God's God's 
ownership of all things. God is owner. He alone is wners ip 
the absolute Proprietor of all things. Constantly is 
the divine ownership taught in the Scriptures. " And 
Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted 
up mine hand unto the Lord the most high God, 
the possessor of heaven and earth "(Gen. 14 : 22). 
' Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, 
and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: 
for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; 
thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted 
as head above all. Both riches and honor come of 
thee. . . For all things come of thee and of thine own 
have we given thee" (1 Chron. 29 : 11-14). " The 
earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof " 
(Ps. 24 : 1). "For every beast of the forest is 
mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills " (Ps. 
50 : 10). ' The silver is mine and the gold is mine, 
saith the Lord of hosts" (Hag. 2:8). God 
allows man to use his possessions, but he never sur- 
renders his ownership. We are not owners, for we 
brought nothing into this world, and we can take 
nothing out. What we use and enjoy was all here 
before we came. We do not create anything. We 
may gather more or less of material wealth around 
c 



34 



Stewardship and Missions 



Owning the 

Man and 

His Earnings 



Ever Stewards 



Josiah Strong 
Quoted 



our own personality, but all we gather belongs to 
the great Creator of all things. As between each 
other men may be owners. We may have rights 
and titles to certain estates to which no one else has 
any rights or titles. But those rights and titles are 
simply an earthly, human arrangement between man 
and man. Between us and God, he is the owner. 

God owns us. " Ye are not your own, for ye were 
bought with a price " (i Cor. 6 : 19, 20). This does 
not mean simply that our souls belong to God, but 
all that we are, hands and heart and head and all. 
Since we are his the product of our labor is his. 
The man who owned the slave owned what the slave 
earned. The slave did not own any of the product 
of his labor. It all belonged to the man who owned 
him. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. He has 
purchased us unto himself by the price of his own 
precious blood. Every dollar that w r e earn, there- 
fore, belongs to him. 

Since God is owner we can never be more than 
stewards, and we can never be less. We are always 
stewards. We can never get away from this great 
fundamental truth. 

" Manifestly, if God has absolute ownership in us, 
we can have absolute ownership in nothing what- 
ever. If we cannot lay claim to our own selves, how 
much less to that which we find in our hands. 
When we say that no man is the absolute owner of 
property to the value of one penny, we do not take 
the socialistic position that private property is theft. 



Stewardship Defined 35 

Because of our individual trusts, for which we are 
held personally responsible, we have individual 
rights touching property, and may have claims one 
against another; but, between God and the soul, 
the distinction of thine and mine is a snare. Does 
one-tenth belong to God? Then ten-tenths are his. 
He did not one-tenth create us and we nine-tenths 
create ourselves. He did not one-tenth redeem us 
and we nine-tenths redeem ourselves. If his claim 
to a part is good, his claim to the whole is equally 
good. His ownership in us is no joint affair. We 
are not in partnership with him. All we are and 
have is utterly his, and his only. 

' When the Scriptures and reason speak of God's 
ownership in us they use the word in no accom- 
modated sense. It means all that it can mean in a 
court of law. It means that, since our possessions are 
his property, they should be used in his service — 
not a fraction of them, but the whole. When the 
lord returned from the far country, to reckon with 
his servants to whom he had entrusted his goods, 
he demanded not simply a small portion of the in- 
crease, but held his servants accountable for both 
principle and interest — ' mine own with interest.' 
Every dollar that belongs to God must serve 
him " (Josiah Strong). 

This is the starting-point in stewardship. It is at The Base 
this point that Christians everywhere need to get Survey* 
right. Everything relating to the holding and using 
of property of any kind must be looked at from this 



36 Stewardship and Missions 

point of view. In civil engineering all measure- 
ments are from a base line, the accepted base line 
being the level of the sea. God's absolute owner- 
ship of all things is the true base for the proper 
survey of the whole territory of thought and action 
suggested by the words money, property, wealth. 
Every system of giving, and every plan of be- 
nevolence must be measured by this truth. The old 
flying-levels of mere experiment and expediency, ac- 
cording to which the church has worked so long and 
so generally, must be given up, and a return made 
to the ocean-level of the eternal truth that God is 
the owner of all things, and from this point we must 
measure our responsibilities and privileges and 
duties in our use of all the money that ever comes 
into our hands. 
All Life God's ownership of all things, and man's steward- 
ship as a consequence of that ownership, are truths 
which have a most direct and solemn bearing upon 
the entire realm of human life and action. In every- 
thing man is a steward. There is a stewardship of 
life, of health, of strength physical and mental, of 
time, of social, educational, and religious privileges, 
and of opportunity to do good. Every gift of God 
and every blessing he bestows involves stewardship. 
The custody of money is only one department of the 
great stewardship into which man, as a rational and 
spiritual being, has been called. It is a solemn thing 
for a man to have his responsibility to God con- 
stantly increased by daily having committed to him 



Stewardship Defined 



37 



the gifts of God's goodness and grace. But that is 
exactly the position into which every man is brought. 
We can no more evade the responsibility than we 
can live without receiving the gifts. We may in- 
deed forget and ignore our stewardship; we may 
shut God out of our thoughts, and even deny his 
right to us, or to anything we have; but that will 
not free us from the responsibility that rests upon 
us. We shall be held accountable for all that has 
been committed to us. " For unto whomsoever 
much is given, of him shall much be required." 

We do not expect the unregenerate and godless 
to recognize their stewardship, but surely those who 
have been born again, who have been enlightened 
by the Holy Spirit and who call Jesus Lord, will. 
For these carelessly to neglect their high calling as 
stewards of God, and to ignore the responsibilities 
which their stewardship involves, is practically to 
repudiate the teachings and authority of the word of 
God, to despise their exalted privileges as God's 
children, and to deny Christ's claim upon them as 
their Redeemer. 

That the church of Christ has either been ignorant 
of its stewardship, or has forgotten the duties which 
stewardship involves, accounts for any lack of 
means to carry on God's work in the world, which 
now exists, or ever has existed in the past. For had 
God's people recognized and realized their steward- 
ship, and lived and acted accordingly, seeking most 
faithfully to do with time and talent and substance 



Christians 
Specially 
Responsible 



Failure 

Accounted 

For 



38 Stewardship and Missions 

just what he wanted them to do, receiving and using 
all things for him, there is no need in connection 
with God's work in the world but would have been 
fully supplied, and long ago Christ's Great Com- 
mission would have been fully carried out, and the 
gospel would have been preached to every creature. 
And even now, as soon as God's people everywhere 
recognize their stewardship, and act according to the 
principles, privileges, and responsibilities involved, 
just so soon will the great work which God has 
given his church to do in the world be hastened to 
completion, and the kingdom in its fulness and 
glory be ushered in and established on earth. 

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER IJ 

Aim : To Understand the Meaning and Scope of the 
Fundamental Principles of Christian Stewardship 

1. Why does not the subject of Christian giving by itself 

cover all the financial problems of the kingdom? 

2. Why is Christian stewardship a larger subject than 

Christian giving? 

3. Define and illustrate what it is to be a steward. 

4. What is the principal duty of the steward? 

5. What four things are necessarily involved in the lofty 

service of stewardship? 

6. What is the one great stewardship committed to all 

believers? 

7. Name some specific kinds of stewardship and shov\- 

how these are parts of the stewardship of the gospel. 

8. What is the pivot-point for our faithfulness in this 

stewardship, and why? 



Stewardship Defined 39 

9. What is the fundamental truth in the stewardship of 
wealth ? 

10. How is God's ownership of all things proclaimed in 

the Scriptures? 

11. In what sense only are men owners? 

12. What follows from the fact that God owns us? 

13. Why can no compromise with the claim of God's 

ownership be allowed? 

14. What does this truth involve as to the service which 

we and our possessions are to render? 

15. How should the truth of God's ownership be regarded 

in relation to all the money matters of the individual 
and of the church? 

16. What bearing have the truths of this chapter upon all 

life? 

17. What would you say now is the scope of stewardship? 

18. Why should Christians above all others recognize their 

stewardship ? 



Ill 

STEWARDSHIP IN ACQUISITION 



This sense of stewardship is a great awakener of power. 
There was no power in Moses while he thought of his 
slow and stuttering tongue and forgot the entrusted 
message. But when he thought of the entrusted message, 
and put his tongue, such as it was, at God's disposition, 
and tried to deliver the message of Israel's release, Moses 
emerged from weakness into power, and became a force 
that Pharaoh and the world could not push aside. Paul 
Revere, feeling that he was charged by General Warren 
with a truth that must be told for the welfare of others, 
made his midnight ride and warned Concord and Lexington 
of the approach of the enemy, the sense of stewardship 
putting bravery and energy into the rider. All life takes 
on a new significance as soon as we realise that whatever 
we have is ours as a trust. —James G. K. McClure. 

When men see that they may work in behalf of the 
kingdom by the way they run their factories, make laws, 
edit newspapers, pay wages, mine coal, plow fields, a 
great change will come over the life and thought of the 
world. The mechanic may be as necessary to the coming 
of the kingdom of God as the preacher ; and the merchant 
may yet play as important a place as the missionary. 

— Samuel Z. Batten. 



Ill 

STEWARDSHIP IN ACQUISITION 

" Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, . . 
And thou say in thine heart, My power, and the might of 
mine hand, hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt re- 
member the Lord thy God ; for it is he that giveth thee 
power to get wealth" (Deut. 8 : n, 17, 18). 



T 



HE acquisition of money is almost a universal Civilization 

and Money 



necessity wherever civilization has become 
established. The uncivilized tribes do not use 
money. Whatever trade transactions they have 
with each other are carried on by barter, the ex- 
changing of one commodity for another. The in- 
vention of a circulating medium of exchange has 
always been one of the first steps in the develop- 
ment from barbarism to civilization. The medium 
of exchange at first is very simple. The first Ameri- 
can money was wampum. It consisted of small 
shells strung like beads. These shells were white 
and black, the white was the periwinkle and the 
black was the black part of the clam shell, and was 
double the value of the white. It was made into 
strings, groups of strings, and belts, and was one of 
the most complete money measures known among 
barbarous nations. In the early days of the colonies, 

43 



44 



Stewardship and Missions 



Advancing 

Civilization 

and Its Needs 



Accumulation 

Not 

Thought Of 



Why Money 
is Desired 



when coin money was scarce, wampum was adopted 
and used to great advantage in trading not only with 
the Indians, but among the colonists themselves. 
TJjxee beads of the black and six of the white were 
equal to a penny. In Central Africa strings of 
beads, coils of brass wire, or pieces of cotton are 
still used as money. 

Where civilization has advanced, a simpler and 
more convenient medium of exchange becomes 
necessary. As men emerge from barbarism and be- 
come acquainted with the products and forces of 
the material universe, and begin to discover and to 
exercise their power over those forces, and to utilize 
the products of nature, the physical world about 
them begins to wear an industrial and commercial 
character, there arises the necessity for some new 
method of expressing values, and for better stand- 
ards and more convenient forms of money. 

The early use of money was chiefly to facilitate 
trade transactions. The vast accumulations of 
money that are so characteristic of this age were 
not thought of when money had a simpler meaning, 
and was so limited in its use and in its power. 

As civilization advanced money became a greater 
necessity. With the introduction of the industrial 
arts money in the form of capital had to be invested, 
wages had to be paid, and money became necessary 
not only as a medium of exchange in trade, but 
also as an equivalent of man's labor. With this 
wider use of money there came an increased neces- 



Stewardship in Acquisition 



45 



sity to possess it. With the necessity came the de- 
sire to possess in ever-increasing intensity. Men 
began to want money not alone that they might 
thereby obtain the necessaries of life, but the acqui- 
sition of wealth for its own sake, simply that one 
might be rich, became the ambition of men in their 
money making. As a result, men have piled up 
enormous accumulations of wealth immeasurably 
beyond what they need for any personal beneficial 
use in any way. 

More men are wealthy to-day than ever before. 
Our modern civilization with its manifold indus- 
trial and commercial operations, with its enormous 
exploitation of the resources of nature beyond any- 
thing that has characterized the past, has made it 
possible for more men to accumulate large wealth in 
these days than in any previous age. More men 
who started life as wage-earners have become mil- 
lionaries within the past half-century than perhaps 
during any two or three centuries in the world's 
history. 

It is in connection with the acquisition of property 
and wealth that the responsibilities of stewardship 
begin. We are dealing with this subject from the 
wrong end when we think, or act as though we so 
thought, that our stewardship has to do chiefly with 
our giving. Giving is not the first thing in steward- 
ship, but the last. When we make an offering of 
that which has come into our hands, our steward- 
ship ends. Our stewardship begins with our in- 



Many 

Wealthy 



The 

Beginning of 
Responsibility 



46 Stewardship and Missions 

come. The moment we begin to earn wages, or 
derive profit from business, or receive an income 
from some profession, or in any way acquire wealth, 
that moment we become responsible as stewards. 
Xbi? se whose incomes are small are just as really 
responsible as stewards as those whose incomes are 
large. We may even go farther, and say, that the 
man who does not secure an income when he might, 
who does not use the faculties with which God has 
been pleased to endow him, and which belong to 
God, will be held accountable for his neglect and un- 
faithfulness. The servant who laid the pound away 
in a napkin and brought no returns to his master 
was condemned because he did not get. The stew- 
ard is responsible for the opportunities that come 
to him to advance the interests of the one for whom 
he is steward. We are responsible to God for what 
he permits to come into our hands. He gives us the 
power and the opportunity to acquire wealth, and 
all that we acquire is his because we are his. 
Man's Men depend upon God in the acquisition of 
CP on God wea lth. No man can make any money without 
God's help and blessing. Men need to remember 
what God said to the children of Israel centuries 
ago, when through Moses there came to them this 
message, " Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, 
for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth " 
(Deut. 8 : 18). The farmer may plow the field and 
sow the seed and afterward reap the harvest, but 
who does the work? Who sets the subtle forces 



Stewardship in Acquisition 



47 



of nature to work to germinate the seed and cause 
it to spring up and ripen into the harvest? How 
utterly powerless the farmer is without God. So 
too is the miner, the lumberman, the manufacturer, 
and the mechanic. Where will any of these find the 
materials with which to enrich themselves if they 
are left entirely to their own resources and do not 
touch anything that God has created? 

A man's ability to earn wages, or to carry on 
business, as well as his opportunities for either, are 
God-given. Without God men can do nothing. 
" For who maketh thee to differ ? and what hast 
thou that thou didst not receive? but if thou didst 
receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not 
received it" (i Cor. 4:7). Surely it is nothing 
less than a sinful and proud ignoring of God's 
goodness and blessing for men who have suc- 
ceeded in business, or money making, to take the 
whole credit to themselves and boastfully say, " I 
have built up this business and achieved this suc- 
cess by my own ability and power." Thus did 
King Nebuchadnezzar boast when he said : " Is 
not this great Babylon which I have built for the 
royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power, 
and for the glory of my majesty?" But while he 
was yet speaking it was announced that his kingdom 
was taken from him. Men should beware of leav- 
ing God out of their calculations in their enterprises 
and of forgetting him and their dependence on him 
when they have succeeded, lest he deprive them of 



A Warning 
Against 
Forgetting 
God 



48 Stewardship and Missions 

all they have gained. Men cannot acquire or hold 
anything except by the will of God. What God 
undertakes to bestow upon a man nothing can pre- 
vent his receiving, and what he undertakes to with- 
hold of riches from a man, no skill or cunning of 
his can obtain. Because men depend upon God in , 
their money getting they should definitely give him 
a place in all their activities for the acquisition of 
wealth. 
Business Christian men should, therefore, go into business 
Stewidshi° or anv vocation as stewards for God, to make 
money in partnership with him and for him. Sox&er 
men have said, " When I am more free from the 
pressure of business I will engage more in Chris- 
tian work, I will have more time to do something 
for the cause of Christ." This is certainly to take 
a very narrow view of life, and a very material and 
worldly view. Gqd is not calling men to give up 
business in order that they may serve him, but he 
is calling men to serve him in their business, and 
by their business, as Christian stewards. A young 
man said, " I would not dare go on in my busi- 
ness without realizing that in my business I was in 
partnership with God." Another said, " I mean 
to be a business man for Jesus Christ. I mean to 
make money for God." Both these men have been 
adjusting their business activities to the great world-; 
embracing business of the King of kings, and have 
been making their business a very definite part of 
that greater business. 






Stewardship in Acquisition 49 

A Christian man's place of business ought to be A Divine 
as sacred to him as any place of prayer. It ought to mg 
be a place of prayer. His business ought to be to 
him as really a " divine calling," as is the work of 
the Christian minister or missionary to the men who 
are ordained for those spheres of service. No man's 
life is going to count for much for the good of the 
world that is not possessed by a sense of a divine 
calling and mission. " A man's work," says S. Z. 
Batten, " whatever it is, is the sphere of his religious 
manifestation, and that work is a divine calling." 
We have made a great mistake when we have di- 
vided our life and called this part secular and that 
religious. It is all religious. We are always 
stewards. 

When William Carey was a young man he used William 
to go about the villages and hamlets of England 
preaching the gospel wherever he found an oppor- 
tunity. One day some one said to him, " Carey, 
you are neglecting your business in doing so much 
of this work." Carey replied, " This is my business, 
I only cobble shoes to pay expenses." So when 
Christian men realize their stewardship for God 
they will say, " My business is extending the king- 
dom of God throughout the earth, and I sell gro- 
ceries, or run a factory, or practise medicine, or 
mine coal, or work a farm to pay the expenses of 
the kingdom." 

" It is the duty of some men to make a great deal Josiah Strong 
of money. God has given to them the money-ma- ° 

D 



50 Stewardship and Missions 

king talent ; aq,d it is as wrong to bury that talent 
as to bury a talent for preaching. It is every man's 
duty to wield the widest possible power for right- 
eousness : and the power in money must be gained 
before it can be used. Whatever their occupation, 
Christians have but one business in the world, viz., 
the extending of Christ's kingdom; and merchant, 
mechanic, and banker are under exactly the same 
obligations to be wholly consecrated to that work 
as is the missionary" (Josiah Strong). 

Lyman Abbott i " The end of all business, as the end of all other 
Quoted v ac tivity," says Lyman Abbott, " is the promotion of 
the kingdom of God. If a man is working with 
this end in view, he may be assured of God's help 
in his work, not necessarily to make his business 
a financial success, but to make it a means for the 
service of God and the enrichment of humanity." 
President Roosevelt has given expression to the 
following lofty sentiment, " It is the duty of all of us 
while doing the work of the world to show that we 
have not lost sight of spiritual ends in our material 
conquests." 

Abiding With " Let each man, wherein he was called, therein 

God 

abide with God " (i Cor. 7 : 24). " Therein abide 
with God." That means to take God with one into 
business. It means to abide in fellowship with him, 
in dependence upon him, and in co-operation with 
him, as his steward, in all one's business transac- 
tions. " In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he 
shall direct thy paths." 



Stewardship in Acquisition 51 

These high ideals have not been wholly lost sight Hon. Chester 
of. There have been those who have thus definitely Stewardship 7 S 
recognized their stewardship in the activities by 
which they acquired wealth, and have carried on 
business as a divine calling and as a service for 
Jesus Christ. When the Hon. Chester W. Kings- 
ley was a young man his prayer was. " Lord, give 
me a hand to get and a heart to give." He brought 
his business under the dominating power of lofty 
spiritual motives. Hearing a sermon by his pastor 
in which the question was asked, " Why should not 
a Christian business man open an account with the 
Lord on his ledger, and treat it with all the sanctity 
and promptness that he would his account with any 
business firm?" Mr. Kingsley said, "I will do 
that." Years afterward he testified to the pastor 
who asked that question in his sermon, that over 
half a million dollars had passed through his per- 
sonal account with the Lord. Mr. Kingsley saw in 
business an opportunity for large service for his 
Master. 

Alpheus Hard y, the princely Xew England phi- The Story of 
lanthropist, who educated the noted Japanese Chris- Hardy US 
tian, Dr. Joseph. Hardy Neesima, the founder of 
the Doshisha University in Japan, is a striking illus- 
tration of faithful stewardship in business. Mr. 
Hardy once told the story of how he came to devote 
himself to money making as his ministry for Christ. 
He said, " I wanted to go to college and become a 
minister. I went to Phillips Academy to fit myself 



52 Steivardship and Missions 

for college. My health broke down, and in spite 
of my determined hope to go on, at last the truth 
was forced on me that I could not. To tell of my 
disappointment is impossible. It seemed as if all 
my hope and purpose in life were defeated. ' I can- 
not be God's minister/ was the sentence that kept 
running through my mind. At last one morning, 
alone in my room, my distress was so great that I 
threw myself flat on the floor. The voiceless cry 
of my soul was, ' O God, I cannot be thy minister.' 
Then there came to me as I lay, a vision, a new hope, 
a perception that I could serve God in business with 
the same devotion as in preaching, and that to make 
money for God might be my sacred calling. The 
vision of this service and its nature as a sacred 
ministry was so clear and joyous that I arose to my 
feet with new hope in my heart and exclaimed 
aloud, ' O God, I can be thy minister ; I will go 
back to Boston, I will make money for God, and 
that shall be my ministry/ From that time I felt 
myself as much appointed and ordained to make 
money for God as if I had been permitted to carry 
out my own plans and been ordained to preach the 
gospel. I am God's man and the ministry to which 
God called me is to make and administer money for 
him, and I consider myself responsible to discharge 
this ministry and to give account of it to him." 
A Missionary These splendid instances of consecrated steward- 
& Home S ^P m the acquisition and administration of wealth 
but illustrate what is possible in the lives of many 



Stewardship in Acquisition 53 

others. What one has done others can do. These 
high levels are not beyond the reach of those who 
are now entering upon their life-work. Such a 
heaven-born purpose as filled the heart of Alpheus 
Hardy may well take possession of thousands of 
those who are just beginning to earn wages or who 
are just entering upon a business or professional 
career. In this way multitudes of church-members 
might enter upon a missionary career at home, as 
lofty in the Christliness of its purpose, as devoted 
in the intensity of its activity, and as extensive in 
the sweep of its power as that of the consecrated 
missionary in the crowded city or Western plains in 
the home land, or in the lands of darkness and super- 
stition across the sea. 

In the stewardship of the gospel which has been The 
committed to the church, the need of the hour is B e - ng 
that a great company of Christian men shall make an Business Men 
unreserved surrender of themselves to God for 
his service, and shall henceforth regard themselves 
as God's ministers to make and administer money 
for him. Not only would this result in a great for- 
ward movement in connection with the evangeli- 
zation of the world, and meet the present urgent 
needs in connection with that work, but untold 
blessings would come upon those who would thus 
devote themselves to the service of God. Whether 
wage-earners with small incomes or merchant 
princes administering hundreds of thousands of 
dollars, they would alike come into rich spiritual 



54 



Stewardship and Missions 



Employers 

and 

Employees 



Stewardship 

Living an 

Evangelizing 

Force 



experiences. Life would no longer be a drudgery 
to the hard-working employee, or a passing burden 
to the hard-working capitalist, but to both it would 
be filled with the brightness of heaven's sunshine and 
the blessedness of divinest peace. 

The living of a stewardship life in the acquisition 
of wealth means, of course, that every dollar shall 
be gotten honestly, and according to the standards 
of justice and equity held before us in the word of 
God. Employers who are faithful, God-honoring 
stewards will not deal with their employees un- 
justly. Errfployees who are true to their steward- 
ship will not be unfaithful in their service, but will 
do their full duty in every day's work. " It is 
required in stewards that a man be found faithful." 
This applies to capitalist and laborer, salesman and 
customer, manufacturer and consumer, lawyer and 
client, and all others, alike. 

What the world needs is the putting of life in all 
its relations on a stewardship basis, and especially 
in those relations which men bear to each other in 
connection with the acquisition of wealth. Then the 
man to whom God has entrusted much will not be 
governed by selfishness and greed for gold in his 
money making, but will aim to be a channel of 
blessing to others, a true friend to humanity, a 
worker together with God for the salvation and 
good of men everywhere. He will neither wrong 
those whom he employs nor treat unfairly nor dis- 
honestly those who have business dealings with him. 



Stewardship in Acquisition 55 

Every business transaction, and every law in the 
world of commerce, will be governed by the divine 
law of Christian stewardship and made to conform 
to it. The getting of money will become a sacred 
act. ' Trade will thus become a means of grace, 
and commerce an ally of religion." A deep religious 
significance will become attached to the common 
toils and employments of life. Then the outside un- 
believing world will see, what it has long needed to 
see, a demonstration of the reality and power of 
Christianity in everyday life that will be absolutely 
convincing, breaking down every objection, silen- 
cing every criticism, and constraining men by thou- 
sands to become followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

When men live their lives on a stewardship basis The Wage- 
in their money getting, the wage-earner, no matter steward * 
how humble his toil, or small his wages, will go to 
his work not as an eye-servant to please men, but 
as a servant of Christ to do the will of God with all 
his heart in all his^work. He will be diligent and 
conscientious as a workman. He will neither waste 
his employer's time nor slight his work. The wages 
he receives he will accept as a trust from God, and 
will seek with all carefulness to use what he receives 
as God would have him use it. He will neither 
spend his income foolishly, nor hoard it sinfully, but 
as God's steward he will both earn it and use it for 
God's glory, and eating his bread with thankfulness 
day by day will rejoice in the Lord his God who 
gives him all things richly to enjoy. 



56 Stewardship and Missions 

Solving Labor When men begin to act as God's stewards in their 
money getting, when both employers and employees 
acknowledge their accountability to the Creator and 
Preserver of all things, labor problems which are 
now so puzzling and perplexing will not be so dif- 
ficult of solution. The differences, the bitternesses, 
and the strifes between the laborer and the capitalist 
will disappear when they both remember that God 
is over them, and that he has claims upon each of 
them. Instead of striving against each other, as 
they do now, they will strive to help one another. If 
social reformers would have a most powerful lever 
to lift all their fellow-men to a higher level, or if 
they would advance truths and arguments that 
would put all men on the same level, then let them 
proclaim the great principles and truths of Chris- 
tian stewardship. Let them teach men everywhere 
that all money and all property, whether in the 
hands of the wage-earner, or in the hands of the 
capitalist, is a trust from God to be administered for 
him. 
A Divine With the business man, be he merchant or manu- 
e s ip f acturer, architect or builder, whether independent 
or in company with others, a proper recognition of 
his stewardship will give a very decided character 
to all his transactions. Life to him will not be di- 
vided into sacred and secular. There will be no 
line on one side of which he will say, " Here I must 
be religious," and on the other side of which he will 
say, " Here I may be worldly." To the true steward 



Stewardship in Acquisition 57 

business is as sacred a thing as a prayer meeting, 
and is to be conducted on the strictest lines of 
honesty and purity. The Christian steward realizes 
that he is in partnership with the Father and with 
his Son Jesus Christ, and his business is carried on 
in relation to that partnership. He feels free to ask 
God's guidance and blessing upon his business 
transactions, and rejoices in the consciousness of his 
heavenly Father's presence in everything he does, or 
that takes place in connection with his business. 

Life becomes a different thing from what it God's Glory 
usually is when men sell goods, or keep ledgers, or 
use hammers and saws, or plow and sow fields, for 
Christ. Nor is any duty in all the realm of daily 
toil too humble to be performed with an eye single 
to God's glory. " Whether therefore ye eat or 
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of 
God" (1 Cor. 10 : 31). Stewardship helps to lift 
men up to this high ideal. 

The objection is raised, however, that the man An Objection 
who tries to carry on business on such a high level 
of devotion to these divinely given principles of 
stewardship will fail; that a man cannot be strictly 
honest and succeed ; that in money making " busi- 
ness is business," and a man must do as others do 
or be crowded to the wall. It is admitted that the 
pressure of competition is tremendous in these days, 
and that the temptations to stoop to fraud and 
trickery are many and mighty. But must Christian 
men yield to these temptations? Men who are 



58 Stewardship and Missions 

lovers of money more than lovers of God may, but 
the Christian steward is not mastered by money, he 
masters it. He has been taught that no man can 
serve God and Mammon, and he has also learned 
how to make Mammon serve God. Nor are in- 
stances lacking where men have carried on business 
in fullest harmony with Christian principles and 
have succeeded. There are many such, indeed, and 
they are prepared to testify that their adherence to 
the principles of righteousness in business has been 
the secret of their success. They glorify God in 
their business. Why should they not succeed? 
An Unhappy Oh, for a generation of Christian men and women 
having the faith to earn wages and carry on busi- 
ness as God's stewards, to prove to the world that 
men may do business in harmony with the precepts 
and principles of God's word and yet prosper. 

Money getting is not the most important or the 
most necessary thing for this life ; but right motives 
and God-honoring methods and practices are es- 
sential to carrying out the principles of Christian 
stewardship. The story is told of a gentleman in 
New York City who died leaving eleven millions 
of dollars. He was a member in good standing of a 
Christian church. But on his deathbed he was very 
unhappy, and in great distress of mind gave con- 
tinual expression to remorse for what his con- 
science told him had been an ill-spent life. " Oh," 
he exclaimed, " if I could only be spared for a few 
years I would give all the wealth I have amassed in 



Stewardship in Acquisition 59 

a lifetime ! It is a life devoted to money getting that 
I regret. It is this which weighs me down, and 
makes me despair of the life hereafter." But a life 
devoted to money getting need not end in painful 
regrets, and will not if the object of the money 
getting is to manage and use the money for God's 
glory. A life devoted to money getting in honest 
and legitimate ways may be as glorifying to God, 
and as full of blessing to the world, as a life- devoted 
to preaching the gospel among the heathen. It will 
be, if the money getting is all in harmony with the 
pure and lofty principles of Christian stewardship. 

The call of the hour is to business men to serve A Call to 
God in their business and by their business. God oung en 
needs men who will be faithful stewards of the 
manifold grace of God by being faithful stewards 
for him in the acquisition of wealth. Especially to 
the young men does this call come. It will be far 
easier to adjust one's business career to the great 
business of the kingdom of God when life's duties 
and reponsibilities are being assumed, and life's 
activities are being entered upon, than at any time 
afterward. 

In a series of missionary and stewardship con- Rearrange Your 
ferences held on the Pacific coast, one of the Life ' s Activities 
speakers constantly in his appeals made use of this 
sentence, " Rearrange your life's activities in the 
light of the Great Commission." We repeat the plea. 
Rearrange your life's activities and bring them all 
into harmony with the great fact that a stewardship 



60 Stewardship and Missions 

of the gospel has been committed to you. If you 
are just now securing an education, make it your 
aim thereby to fit yourself for the largest possible 
service for the evangelization of the world. That 
need not mean that you must be a missionary, or 
even a preacher or pastor at home. It will mean 
that you are determined that your life shall count 
for Christ and the good of men. If you are just 
about to enter upon a business life set before your 
own heart the high ideals of a stewardship life. Be a 
faithful steward of the manifold grace of God in the 
acquisition of wealth. Devote yourself to steward- 
ship living in every relation to property or wealth 
into which it is possible for you to enter. Remem- 
ber that such a life leads to the highest blessedness, 
for it has the promise of the life that now is and of 
that which is to come. 

" Rearrange your life's activities in the 
light of the great commission." 



QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER III 

AiiVl : To Realize that the Fullest Application of 
Stewardship Principles Should be Made by Chris- 
tian Men in Every Effort to Acquire Wealth 

i. Describe the necessity for a medium of exchange and 
how this necessity is met in uncivilized conditions. 

2. Why does civilization increase the demands for a 

convenient medium of exchange? 

3. Explain how the desire to acquire wealth for its own 

sake comes to dominate men. 



Stewardship in Acquisition 61 

4. Why is it easier to accumulate great fortunes now 

than formerly? 

5. Where does our responsibility as stewards begin, and 

where does it end? 

6. How far is a man who doesn't acquire an income 

responsible as a steward? 

7. In what ways do men depend upon God in the acquisi- 

tion of wealth? 

8. How may men definitely give God a place in their busi- 

ness affairs as stewards? 

9. How can a Christian business man best meet the 

stewardship responsibilities that rest upon him in 
his business? 

10. How should a Christian regard his business? Illustrate 

this. 

11. How may the money-making talent be devoted to the 

highest use? 

12. How have these high ideals been exemplified? 

13. Why are not such instances of stewardship in business 

more general? 

14. What would be the results if they were? 

15. What is involved for employers and employees in the 

practice of stewardship? 

16. Name some of the results that would follow in the 

relations between capital and labor, were both sides 
true to stewardship principles. 

17. What is your opinion about the possibility of putting 

these principles into practice in the business life 
of to-day? 

18. What are some of the difficulties in the way? 

19. How would you meet the objection that men cannot 

carry on business according to the teachings of 
Christianity and succeed? 

20. What practical application of stewardship principles are 

you willing to make in your own money making? 

21. Make a brief summary of the teachings of this chapter. 



IV 

STEWARDSHIP IN MONEY USING 



The second source of power with the original eleven 
was their sense of stewardship. They looked on every- 
thing they possessed, whether it was an inner experience 
or an outer holding, as entrusted to them by their Master 
for the Master's uses. Nothing was their own. They were 
administers of an estate. The heirs were the whole human 
race, and they were charged to see that every accessible 
individual of that race received his share of the estate. 
The man far away was to have their consideration, and 
the man at hand was to have their contact. It was this 
thought that kept them from pride in the knowledge of 
their possessions; they held what they held, not for them- 
selves, but for others. They were separate to serve; the 
salt was to help, the light to guide. The very fact that they 
had what others had not, put them under obligations to 
minister to others. So no man was elated by his goodness, 
his knowledge, his wealth, or his reputation ; rather he 
was humbled by them. The more he had the more he was 
under obligation to serve. —James G. K. McClure. 

If the first thing about money is to get it, and the 
second is to keep it, the third is to use it. And this, per- 
haps, needs the greatest wisdom of all. Remember what 
it implies, and what it includes. It implies foresight, so 
as to be ready for losses; self-control, to be able to go 
without things that we should vastly like, but cannot afford ; 
patience, to know how to wait for what we wish for; 
discretion, clearly to perceive what will suit us best; self- 
denial, that we may help others; conscientiousness, that 
in all we spend we may please God; good sense, to draw 
the right line between extremes on either side; a joyous 
liberty of heart, to trust the kindness of God, that he means 
us to be happy. If not to offend in words is one sign of 
perfection, to make a right use of money is another. 

— Anthony W. Thorold. 



IV 



STEWARDSHIP IN MONEY USING 



"There is that withholdeth more than is meet but it 
tendeth to poverty" (Prov. n : 24). 

" Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first- 
fruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with 
plenty" (Prov. 3 : 9, 10). 

*THHERE are many ways of using or misusing J^." 18 . 01 



X money. Sometimes it is most misused when 
it is not used at all, but simply hoarded, withheld 
from those beneficial and God-honoring uses which 
the faithful steward recognizes as the high purpose 
for which it has been committed to him. 

Young people are constantly exhorted to save 
money, and in many respects it is a very proper 
exhortation, but the question arises as to what extent 
the true steward should lay up riches. Can a man 
be faithful as God's steward and at the same time 
accumulate vast amounts of money which he can- 
not well spend for himself or his family? Is it 
right for a Christian to be a millionaire ? The ques- 
tion may be startling, but it is worth considering. 
Stewardship has to do not only with that which is 
gained by our efforts, and with that which is given 
or used, it has also to do with that which is held 

E 65 



Misusing Money 



An Important 
Question 



66 



Stewardship and Missions 



Large 

Acquisition for 

Large Giving 



A Question of 
Limitations 



back and stored up. Can the holding back, the 
hoarding of large amounts of money by those who 
profess to be the disciples of Christ be justified? 

We must not, of course, forget that the large 
offerings, which have of recent years been made to 
different departments of benevolent and religious 
work, could not have been made unless men had ac- 
cumulated large amounts of money. Much of the 
benevolent and humanitarian and higher educational 
work of the present time would never have been 
founded, and could not now be carried on, were it 
not for the munificent gifts of the wealthy. Many 
of our hospitals and colleges and universities, in- 
dustrial and art institutions, owe their existence to 
men of wealth. The large gifts of these men to 
various objects would have been impossible without 
great accumulations. If men do not possess mil- 
lions they cannot give millions, and hence many of 
the institutions which are a blessing to thousands, 
and which will continue to do good for generations 
to come, would never have had an existence had not 
the men who founded them become wealthy. 

Admitting now that great benefits have come to 
the church, and to humanity generally through the 
large benefactions of the wealthy, and that the 
amassing of large amounts of money is necessary 
in order to make such gifts possible, the question 
still confronts us : Is the acquisition of money until 
a man possesses millions of dollars justifiable in the 
light of the principles of Christian stewardship? 



Steivardship in Money Using 6j 

What will the man whose riches are rapidly increas- 
ing do if he regards himself as a steward and all the 
riches that come into his hand as a trust from God? 
Will he allow himself to become immensely wealthy, 
or will he put a limit on his accumulations, and ap- 
ply and use the increase beyond that limit in con- 
nection with God's kingdom, and for the highest 
welfare of his fellow-man ? 

These are questions which at least demand con- An Answer 
sideration. The acquiring and hoarding of large 
sums of money is a most serious business, and men 
need to guard themselves against the sin of robbing 
God. A man should deal with his increase as God's 
steward, and if he stores it, it should be in order that 
he may have a large amount to give to some worthy 
object for God's glory. The true steward will not 
hoard for himself. There will be a steady output 
from his income for Christian and benevolent work, 
and if all stewards w r ere faithfully to increase their 
giving with the increase of their income, the necessity 
for large gifts of millions for any specific objects 
would be obviated. We must act as God would have 
us act. His will must decide. We are accountable to 
him as stewards, and our chief concern, either in 
allowing riches in our possession to increase to mil- 
lions, or in limiting the amount of money we shall 
hold at any time and faithfully disbursing all the 
increase, should be that we are doing what our Lord 
and Master wants us to do. We cannot escape the 
responsibility involved in either case. 



68 Stewardship and Missions 

Scriptural Saving The only storing of money approved of and en- 
joined in the Scriptures is storing for God. " Upon 
the first day of the week let every one of you lay 
by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that 
there be no gatherings when I come " ( I Cor. 
1 6 : 2). Laying by according to this teaching is 
not a laying by for self, nor for the purpose of leav- 
ing a fortune to one's children. It is the setting 
apart of a percentage of all that God prospers us 
with as stewards, to be used solely in his work. It 
is laying by for God. All other laying by is discoun- 
tenanced, forbidden, and condemned in the word 
of God. 
The Bible " ]^ a y no f u p f or yourselves treasures on the earth, 
where moth and rust consume, and where thieves 
break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves 
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust 
consumes, and where thieves do not break through 
nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there will thy 
heart be also " (Matt. 6 : 19-21). 

"Labor not to be rich: cease from thine own wis- 
dom, . . for riches certainly make themselves wings ; 
they fly away as an eagle toward heaven " ( Prov. 

23 •' 4, 5). 

" Woe unto them that join house to house, that 

lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be 
made to dwell alone in the midst of the land " (Isa. 
5 : 8, R. V.). 

" They who desire to be rich fall into temptation 
and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful 




A MISSIONARY CORNUCOPIA 



Stewardship in Money Using 69 

desires, which sink men into destruction and perdi- 
tion. For the love of money is a root of all evil; 
which some longing for wandered away from the 
faith, and pierced themselves through with many 
sorrows " (1 Tim. 6 : 9, 10). 

" Charge those who are rich in this age not to be 
high-minded, not to place their hope on the uncer- 
tainty of riches, but on God, who gives us all things 
richly for enjoyment ; to do good, to be rich in good 
works, to be free in imparting, willing to communi- 
cate ; laying up in store for themselves a good foun- 
dation against the time to come, that they may lay 
hold on the true life " (1 Tim. 6 : 17-19). 

" For what doth it profit a man to gain the whole 
world and to forfeit his soul? or what is a man to 
give in exchange for his soul? " (Mark 8 : 36, 37). 

" And he spake a parable to them saying, The 
ground of a certain rich man brought forth plenti- 
fully: And he reasoned within himself, saying, 
What shall I do because I have not where to store 
my fruits ? And he said, This will I do ; I will pull 
down my barns, and build greater ; and there I will 
store all my grain and my goods. And I will say 
to my soul, Soul, thou hast many goods laid up for 
many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry. 
But God said to him, Fool! this night thy soul is 
required of thee; and the things which thou hast 
prepared, whose will they be ? So is he that lays up 
treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God " 
(Luke 12 : 16-21). 



7o 



Stewardship and Missions 



Saving May 
be Sinful 



Riches 

Unsatisfying 



Leaving 

Fortunes to 

Children 



Storing, or hoarding, simply that one may be rich 
is contrary to these teachings of God's word. Such 
storing of riches is pure selfishness, and selfish- 
ness is sin. " Hoarding is one form of stealing, but 
for which we build no prisons." 

And even when men have gathered vast amounts 
of money and are counted rich they are not satis- 
fied. The more men have the more they want, until 
the amassing of riches becomes an overmastering 
passion with them. Their increase of wealth begets 
covetousness, and covetousness like a consuming 
fever burns out of the heart all love for God, and 
all sympathy for a needy and perishing humanity. 
The fever is only fostered, not expelled, by addi- 
tional possessions. " He that loveth silver shall not 
be satisfied with silver ; nor he that loveth abundance 
with increase" (Eccl. 5 : 10). Men derive true 
satisfaction not from getting so much as from giv- 
ing. There is no joy in withholding from God; 
there is in fully and freely yielding up to him. " It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 

Men desire large increase in their possessions 
sometimes in order that they may leave fortunes to 
their children, supposing that the interests of their 
children will be promoted by their being left rich. 
But in numberless instances the very reverse of this 
has been true. Luxurious idleness, fostered by abun- 
dance of riches which cost no effort to obtain, is the 
highway to ruin. Many rich men's sons have en- 
tered that highway and followed it to its fearful end. 



Stewardship in Money Using ji 

Storing for self, or for sons, involves withholding Robbing God 
from God. " Will a man rob God ? " Will a steward 
take his lord's money and spend it upon himself, or 
transfer it from his lord's bank account to his own, 
and not be guilty of robbery ? And yet what count- 
less millions which have accumulated in the hands 
of the professed disciples of Christ, who have been 
called to be his stewards, and which might have 
given wings to God's messages of love and salvation 
to a lost world, have been held back, and locked up, 
and have not been permitted to do any service for 
God, nor bring any blessing to men. Money getting 
is not in itself a sin, nor is it a sin to be rich ; but it is 
a sin to love money more than one loves God. It is a 
sin to become a Mammon worshiper. It is a sin for 
God's stewards to withhold from him what he has 
committed to them as a trust. It is a sin to allow 
money, and the devotion of time and energy to the 
getting of money, to crowd God out of the heart and 
life. This is the sure result however, when, like the 
rich man in the parable, men lay up treasures for 
themselves and are not rich toward God as his 
stewards. 

There was a time once with the people of Israel pjj 
when they did just as hundreds are doing now, 
when they withheld their substance from God, and 
began spending it upon themselves. It was in the 
days of the prophet Haggai. God's house was lying 
waste, and the people said to each other, " The time 
is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be 



ase in 



72 



Stewardship and Missions 



A Mistake 
Corrected 



Wants and 
Needs 



built," and then turning their backs upon God's 
house and its needs they began spending their money 
in beautifying their own homes. But they were the 
losers in the long run, for presently their harvests 
failed, they sowed much and brought in little, and 
even what they did gather God blew upon and it 
was gone, and they who earned wages, earned wages 
to put in a bag with holes (Hag. i : i-ii). 

Men make a most tremendous mistake when they 
suppose that the way to get rich is to hold back, 
and hoard up, and stow away. God's word says: 
" There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and 
there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it 
tendeth to poverty." God's word says : " Honor the 
Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits 
of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with 
plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new 
wine." 

But while some fail in their stewardship by hoard- 
ing, a larger number fail by spending. As wealth 
increases a man's wants increase. Wants and needs 
are not the same. " Man needs but little here be- 
low," but what shall be said of his wants? Who 
shall enumerate them, who shall begin to count up 
all the longings which fill men's hearts after that 
which they do not possess, but which, as a rule, 
they obtain when they have plenty of money to 
spend in gratifying their desires? Money, after all, 
is as much the creator of wants as it is the dispeller 
of them. Men without money live in the realm of 



Stewardship in Money Using 73 

actual want, while those with abundance of riches 
too often live in the realm of artificial want, and the 
latter are often worse off than the former. This 
realm of artificial want is a realm of luxuriousness, 
extravagance, and money wasting. 

" There was a certain rich man which had a Wasting Money 
steward, and the same was accused unto him that 
he was wasting his goods." So might the accusation 
be justly made against many who have been called to 
be stewards for God. Indeed, the immense waste 
of the money which God has committed to his people 
as a sacred trust is one of the saddest things that can 
be contemplated in connection with this whole sub- 
ject of stewardship. It is a lamentable fact that a 
large proportion of the money that comes into the 
hands of professed Christians is worse than thrown 
away. It is not only that it is wasted in extravagant 
expenditures for personal pleasure, but alas, even in 
such expenditures no small portion goes to further 
the interests of the kingdom of darkness. The 
world, the unbelieving, irreligious, scoffing, Christ- 
hating, and Christ-opposing world, is largely sup- 
ported in its customs and ways and in its opposition 
to Christianity by the resources it draws from the 
church-members whom it deludes into conformity to 
it. Misused wealth is doing much in these days to 
increase the difficulties which confront Christianity ; 
but in no way are these difficulties made greater 
than by the actual assistance which the forces of 
evil receive from the manner in which many spend 



74 



Stewardship and Missions 



their money, and unless there is a turning from 
folly and sin in fostering worldliness, both in the 
church and out of it, there will be some startling 
surprises and much confusion of face when before 
God an account of stewardship is demanded. 
Effects of That there is a most appalling amount of in- 
avagance excusa bi e extravagance in society is only too ap- 
parent It is one of the sins of the times, and by 
it not only is God being robbed of money that should 
go into his work, but men and women are by the 
way they spend money fostering selfishness and 
pride in their own hearts and ministering to the 
lowest instincts and appetites of their natures. Even 
those who have comparatively little of this world's 
goods often spend money foolishly and wastefully. 
Examples of The channels through which this river of extrava- 
avagance g ance f[ ows are very numerous. We cannot trace all 
of them in a single paragraph of these pages. A 
whole book might be written on this one point, filled 
with facts from the customs and doings of modern 
society, which would startle our readers. We can 
only say enough here to indicate the lines along 
which the investigation might be made. There is 
extravagance in costly apparel and jewelry. There 
are ladies who spend more on personal adornment 
in these ways every year than would support many 
a missionary on the foreign field. A missionary 
from the West, attending the meetings of the 
American Home Mission Society at Saratoga, wrote 
to his wife that he saw among the fashionable crowd 



Stewardship in Money Using 



75 



there one young lady " whose costume was worth 
one meeting-house, twenty-three Sabbath-school li- 
braries, and forty cottage organs." A gentleman 
recently paid three thousand dollars duty on dresses 
which his wife brought with her from Paris. 
Among the wedding presents given a bride of fash- 
ionable society was a necklace worth one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand dollars. A Christian lady 
pays five hundred dollars for a shawl, while a gentle- 
man pays two hundred for a fur coat. And so on 
the list might be extended. 

With the increased wealth of the last few years 
there has been a marked increase in expenditures 
for costly wearing apparel and jewelry. In the ten 
years from 1896 to 1906 the imports of diamonds, 
other precious stones and jewelry increased from 
$7,944,032 to $42,120,715; laces and embroideries, 
etc., from $10,878,954 to $34,022,469, and in other 
items a like increase. 

There is surely need in the midst of this growing 
tendency to luxuriousness for a loud and urgent call 
to men and women who call themselves God's chil- 
dren to live simpler lives. There is certainly room 
and need for a greater manifestation of that spirit of 
humility and simplicity that characterized the life of 
our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. 

Dr. A. E. Waffle, in " Christianity and Property," 
asks this timely question : 

" Is it the will of Christ that his followers should 
live in fine houses, fill them with elegant and lux- 



Importations 

of Jewelry 



Christian 
Simplicity 



j6 Stewardship and Missions 

urious furniture, adorn them with costly works of 
art, and keep a retinue of servants to care for them ; 
that they should wear fashionable and expensive 
clothing, and bedeck themselves with jewels; that 
they should keep horses and carriages, give costly 
parties, fare sumptuously every day at their tables, 
and that they should indulge in travel for mere 
sightseeing, and in other pleasures which the world 
calls innocent ? It is not a question of what kind of 
a life is considered desirable from a worldly or social 
point of view; we are seeking to know the will of 
our Lord." 
A Tobacco There is one item in money wasting that should be 
seriously considered by a great company of Chris- 
tian men. We refer to the money spent for tobacco. 
Doctor Josiah Strong in the mission study text- 
book, " The Challenge of the City," says : " There 
are 20,000,000 Protestant church-members in the 
United States. About one-third of them are males. 
Assuming that only one-half of the male members 
are smokers (and we are afraid that is a very gen- 
erous supposition), there are about 3,333,000 in 
that class. On the supposition that they each 
smoke only three five-cent cigars a day, they to- 
gether spend $500,000 daily for tobacco." This 
would amount to $182,500,000 in a year. If only 
one-half of this amount were contributed to mis- 
sions, home and foreign, without the non-smokers 
and women giving anything, enough money would 
be furnished vastly to increase the evangelizating 



Stewardship in Money Using jj 

forces in this country and to give the gospel to 
all the non-Christian nations in a single generation. 

A steward of the Lord Jesus is his representa- The Steward's 
tive as well as his servant. He should aim there- 
fore at so living that he would manifest something 
of the spirit of his Lord and Master. Freedom from 
ostentation and show, lowliness of mind, and sim- 
plicity of life, surely become those who are followers 
of the meek and lowly Christ, who though he was 
rich yet for our sakes became poor. " Have this 
mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus." That 
manner of living which is influenced by the spirit 
of the world, and by the lusts of the flesh and the 
pride of life, and which, in conformity to the world, 
is characterized by extravagance and waste, is al- 
together inconsistent with the principles and obli- 
gations of Christian stewardship. An abiding sense 
of our stewardship will not only greatly help us to 
resist the many temptations of the times to spend 
money uselessly, but will also lead to a proper prac- 
tice of economy in all our use of money. 

" Godliness with contentment is great gain." And The Pathway 
there is nothing more essential to the practice of 
economy than a contented heart. It is written, " Let 
your conversation (or disposition) be without cov- 
etousness, and be content with such things as ye 
have." But we are not content with such things as 
we have. We see others possessing things which we 
do not possess, the fever of covetousness seizes us, 
and we are not satisfied till we have as good or 



of Peace 



78 Stewardship and Missions 

better. It is the craze for buying things, often use- 
less nothings, which makes so many people such 
spendthrifts and wasters. There is need, great need, 
of the cultivation of contentment with things already 
possessed among God's people. Simpler living, not 
niggardly miserliness, but sensible, thoughtful in- 
expensiveness in living, having necessaries and 
comforts without extravagance, will contribute quite 
as much to true happiness as the constant spending 
of money in order to gratify some whim, or to have 
something not already possessed. " A covetous man 
is fretful because he has not as much as he desires ; 
but a gracious man is thankful because he has more 
than he deserves." Outward possessions cannot 
create inward peace. Godliness with contentment 
is great gain. Great gain without godliness usually 
brings discontent. Christian economy is an economy 
that makes gain stoop to godliness, and does not 
permit godliness to stoop to gain. The obligations 
of Christian stewardship require economy of this 
sort. 
Providing for There are, of course, necessary and legitimate ex- 
the Family p enses w hich must be taken into account in connec- 
tion with our stewardship. Our Lord is not a hard 
Master to stint his stewards and put them on a 
short allowance when they serve him. Providing 
for his family is part of the Christian's duty as a 
steward. He has no more right to withhold from 
them or permit them to suffer than he has to with- 
hold from God. " If any provideth not for his own, 



Stewardship in Money Using 79 

and specially his own household, he hath denied the 
faith, and is worse than an unbeliever " ( 1 Tim. 
5 : 8, R. V.). The consecration of ourselves and 
our property to God as his stewards will not 
deprive us, or those depending upon us, of any 
comforts which we or they really need. What- 
ever there may be of temporal blessings which God's 
stewards or their families need, God will not see 
them lack. " Your heavenly Father knoweth that 
ye have need of all these things." A faithful stew- 
ard will seek in all personal expenditures to know 
and do God's will, and will seek to act as a steward 
in making those expenditures. In this matter no 
other rule can be laid down. Circumstances differ 
very greatly, and an amount that would be ex- 
travagant in one case would be absolutely necessary 
in another. Some people would best fulfil the re- 
quirements of their stewardship if they would spend 
more in a common-sense and helpful way upon 
themselves and families. Our message therefore is 
not against necessary expenditures which home or 
business life creates, nor is it against those com- 
forts and pleasures which go to make life bright 
and happy and useful. Pleasant homes, comfortably 
and even beautifully furnished, good food and cloth- 
ing, educational and social advantages — all that is 
really necessary to the best kind of living may all 
be had, and not a dollar be wasted or spent in a use- 
less manner. True joy comes through using money 
in ways that please God. 



80 Stewardship and Missions 

Principles The following principles should govern us in the 
use of money. 
Being j # Every use of money should be made on the 
basis of our stewardship. What we do with the 
property or wealth that comes into our hands we 
should do as stewards, and in the consciousness of 
our responsibility to God for every use we make of j 
that which belongs to him. We have no right to 
do as we please with God's gold and silver. " One 
of the plain duties of stewardship," says Alex. 
McLaren, " is that we bring conscience and deliber- 
ate consideration to bear upon our administration 
of this world's goods. We are stewards in regard to 
what we spend on ourselves and our families, as 
well as in what we spend for purposes beyond our- 
selves — our personal and domestic expenditures, our 
savings and our gifts, and the proportion between 
them, should all equally pass under the inspection of 
deliberate conscience." 

Money is 2. Money should be used with a proper appreci- 
ation of its significance. Money is the stored-up 
energy of the man who earns it. The dollar that I 
earn is so much of my life, my mental and physical 
powers, myself stored up in a coin. What I do with 
that dollar is what I do with myself. As I spend 
it I set free so much of " the treasured energy which 
I hold in trust, and I set it free to go on forever 
in a right or wrong direction." No man does any 
better with himself than he does with the money 
which is the stored potentiality of himself. 



Myself 



Stewardship in Money Using 81 

3. Money should be used with a consciousness of Money's Power 
its value as a force in the kingdom of God. If 

money is my stored-up self, by it I can go to the 
ends of the earth as God's messenger. Money 
makes a man omnipresent. By means of it he may 
be working for Christ in the midst of the millions 
of foreign-speaking people who are pouring into 
our land, and at the same time he may be causing 
the light of God to shine into the dark places of 
our great cities, and also be translating the Scrip- 
tures in China, preaching the gospel in India, and 
scattering thousands of copies of God's word among 
the nations. 

4. In our use of money we should be careful not The Right 
to divorce it from spiritual relations. We should 

ever keep the interests of the kingdom of God 
and his glory before us in our every use of money. 
A Christian business man who was making money 
very rapidly, used to pray this prayer at family 
worship : " Lord, may I not make any more money 
to-day than I can use for thy glory." Thus he kept 
his money getting and his money using in spiritual 
relations. The ordinary matters of life, such as the 
buying of food and clothing, or a home and its 
furnishings, should all be definitely related to the 
kingdom of our Lord. We are stewards, and in all 
things we are to please and serve him. 

5. Our expenditures should be made to conform A Good 
to our giving and not our giving to our expen- ue 
ditures. This is an important principle to remember. 

F 



82 



Stewardship and Missions 



A Good Reason 

for Using 

Money Aright 



Andrew Murray 
Quoted 



An Essential 

to Faithful 

Stewardship 



It is often forgotten, and we go on spending, and 
spending, till we have little or nothing left to give. 
We should fix the proportion that we shall give and 
faithfully lay that aside when we receive our income 
and then conscientiously adjust all our expenditures 
to our giving. It is as unreasonable as it is wrong, 
for God's stewards to be forever increasing their 
personal and household expenses with every increase 
of their income while God's work of redemption in 
the world drags and suffers for lack of funds. 

As the faithful steward thus conscientiously and 
prayerfully, and with an eye single to God's glory, 
administers what God is pleased to entrust to him, 
he will safeguard his own soul against pride and 
covetousness, will hold himself in abiding fellowship 
with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, and 
will find his money using not an evil and a snare, but 
a means of great spiritual blessing. 

" Money — this is what I want to learn from him 
above all — money, the cause of so much temptation 
and sin, and sorrow and eternal, loss ; money, as it is 
received and administered and distributed at the feet 
of Jesus, the Lord of the treasury, becomes one of 
God's choicest channels of grace to myself and 
others" (Andrew Murray in "Money"). 

Living a life of faith in the Son of God lies at 
the bottom of all true fidelity in stewardship. It 
requires faith at the outset to step out into the life 
which a recognition of one's stewardship involves, 
and it requires faith to press forward into all the 



Stewardship in Money Using 83 

duties and sacrifices into which that life leads. 
But shall we shrink from the stewardship life on 
that account ? God forbid ! Rather let us pray for 
faith to be faithful as God's stewards, and then, 
with holy purpose, go on to do his will. 

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER IV 

Aim : To Realize Our Responsibility in the Adminis- 
tration and Use of All that is Entrusted to Us 
as Stewards 

1. How may the saving of money be a misuse of it? 

2. Which is the greater evil, to acquire wealth and hoard 

it, or lavishly to spend it in extravagant living? 

3. What benefits may come from accumulating large 

amounts of money? 

4. Which is the better way and more in harmony with 

the principles of stewardship, to apply and use one's 
increase for the Lord's work as it comes in, or to 
save it until there is a large amount and then give 
that? 

5. What do the Scriptures teach on this point? 

6. Name some of the dangers that accompany the hoarding 

of large sums of money. 

7. How may the hoarding of money be a sin? 

8. How does the increase of wealth usually affect the 

manner in which people live? 

9. How may Christians hinder the progress of Chris- 

tianity rather than help it by the way they use 

money ? 
iOi Give some examples of extravagance or luxuriousness 

that have come under your own observation. 
11. What practical suggestions would you make for simpler 

living among professing Christians in order that 



84 Stewardship and Missions 

there might be more faithful stewardship in the 
interests of God's kingdom? 

12. What is it that influences many to make a wrong and 

wasteful use of money? 

13. What is the secret of true happiness in our steward- 

ship of wealth? 

14. By what high motive will a conscientious steward be 

governed in the support of his family? 

15. Would the practice of stewardship principles in the 

use of money for the support of one's family result 
in any hardship for the family? 

16. Against what would such stewardship guard men? 

17. Name some principles that should help us to be faithful 

in our stewardship of wealth. 

18. Which of these principles do you think is of the 

greatest value? 

19. What would be the effect upon their giving if men 

were governed by these principles in money using? 

20. In what way may the ordinary everyday expenditures 

of money for such things as food and clothing, be 
related to the kingdom of God? 

21. What do you think would be the effect upon the man 

himself who should faithfully use money as God's 
steward ? 

22. Is it easy to adjust our daily living to stewardship 

principles ? 

23. In what ways is this study going to influence you in 

the use of money? 

24. What relation have the teachings of this chapter to 

the spread of the gospel? 



V 

STEWARDSHIP IN GIVING 



In the time of the great Indian famine there were relief 
agents to whom were entrusted great sums of money with 
which to feed the hungry, but who kept that money for 
themselves, while hundreds of starving creatures died 
under their very eyes. God has given us wealth that we 
may relieve the spiritual famine of the world. Shall 
we keep for ourselves, or spend upon our own pleasures, 
what belongs to the perishing? What should we think of 
the professed Christian who, when the bread was passed 
to him at the Lord's Supper should keep it all for himself, 
and refuse to pass it on? When the Lord multiplies the 
loaves to feed the five thousand, shall the apostles keep the 
loaves to themselves, and pile them till they form such a 
barricade that the five thousand are hid from sight? And 
shall John be excused from distributing simply because 
Peter will not do his part? Ah, my brethren, this is a 
matter between each one of us and Christ! Each of us 
is charged with maintaining and extending a spiritual 
church, by our giving, as well as by our witnessing and 
teaching. And not our brethren, but only Christ, is our 
Example, our Lawgiver, and our Judge. 

— President Augustus H. Strong, D. D. 

No sympathy should be wasted over the common excuse 
that people do not have the money that is required. They 
have it in abundance, and they prove it by spending it 
freely on things that minister to their pleasure. The evan- 
gelization of the world is too important an enterprise to 
take what is left after everything else has been provided 
for. Business men do not hesitate to attempt the most 
colossal things in secular affairs. . . Why then should it 
be deemed fanciful for the church to attempt to raise for 
the evangelization of the world a sum which many of its 
members would not regard as impracticable for a secular 
enterprise? Shall we work for our own enrichment on a 
vast scale and work for God and our fellow-men on a 
small one? —Arthur J. Brown. 



V 

STEWARDSHIP IN GIVING 

"All things come of thee and of thine own have we 
given thee" (i Chron. 29 : 14). 

"See that ye abound in this grace also" (2 Cor. 8:7). 

IT is exceedingly important that the principles of The 
Christian stewardship should be conscientiously eshn g-P ace 
applied in the acquisition and distribution of wealth. 
Here is the testing-place in our stewardship. Failure 
here will mean failure all along the line. Selfish- 
ness in money matters lays hold of men long before 
they come to the question of giving. True steward- 
ship in acquisition and in using will result in true 
stewardship in giving. Men fail to give as they 
should because they have not realized their steward- 
ship in those relations to wealth which precede giv- 
ing. Fruits depend on roots. Streams depend on 
springs. Stewardship giving depends on steward- 
ship getting and using. 

It is the duty of the steward to give. He is under Rights and 
obligation to make returns to the Lord his God. lga ons 
The lord of the vineyard had a right to some returns 
from the husbandmen to whom he let it. The 
vineyard was his, and while the husbandmen to 

87 



88 



Stewardship and Missions 



Searching 
Questions 



Why Christians 
Should Give 



whom it was let had a right to a share of the fruits, 
they had no right to hold all for themselves. A 
share was due the owner of the vineyard. 

It is infinitely more reasonable and just that 
God should have returns from his stewards than 
that any landlord should have rent from his tenants, 
or that any banking institution should have interest 
for its loans. God furnishes his stewards immeas- 
urably more than any landlord can his tenants, or 
money lender the borrower. And if men willingly 
acknowledge the rights of their fellow-men to some 
returns for the use of property or money, shall 
the rights of the Lord our God, the Creator of all 
things, who so ,. graciously and abundantly pours 
upon all men the blessings of his providence and 
grace be ignored and he be treated as though he 
had no right whatever to any returns ? " Will a man 
rob God ? " Shall he who furnishes all the capital 
in the partnership, and who makes possible all the 
success that comes, receive nothing of what is 
gained? Shall we who furnish so little take all and 
give God nothing? To withhold is to ignore the 
sovereignty of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ. 
Let no man call Jesus his Lord who refuses to 
make offerings to him of that which he has re- 
ceived. 

For many other reasons the Christian is under 
obligations to give of his substance for the support 
of the church and the spread of the gospel. He 
owes the church something. It has been through 



Stewardship in Giving 89 

the church that God has blessed him with a knowl- 
edge of Jesus Christ and his redemption. As he 
has been blessed he is now under obligation to be a 
blessing. He is under obligation to give because 
of what his Saviour has done for him. 

I gave my life for thee, 

My precious blood I shed, 
That thou might'st ransomed be, 

And quickened from the dead; 
I gave my life for thee, 
What hast thou done for me? 

He is under obligation to give because he has 
been made a steward of the manifold grace of God. 
The gospel has been committed to him to pass on to 
others, and he is a debtor to those others wherever 
they may be until he has done his utmost to make 
that gospel known to them. His Lord and Master 
has commanded him to give. To withhold manifests 
ingratitude and involves disobedience. 

As we are under such great obligations to give of The Right Aim 
that which has been entrusted to us, it is important m lvxng 
that we should earnestly consider those things that 
are essential to make our giving acceptable to God, 
contribute to the highest welfare of humanity, and 
a means of blessing to ourselves. For what will it 
profit a man to give millions to this object or that if 
God is neither pleased nor glorified, if no real good 
for others is accomplished, and the giving is a 
spiritual injury rather than a blessing to ourselves? 



90 Stewardship and Missions 

Self Before The first essential to right giving of our substance 
is the giving of ourselves. The Lord looketh upon 
the heart. The heart must be right before the act 
can be acceptable. We ourselves are of more value 
to God than any material offering we can bring to 
him. He wants us. The devotement of all that we 
are to God must precede the devotement of all that 
we have. Persons before possessions.- " And this 
they did, not as we expected, but first gave their own 
selves to the Lord." " Personal consecration must 
come before purse consecration, self-consecration be- 
fore wealth consecration. It is not the gold that 
sanctifies the temple, but the temple that sanctifies 
the gold." This is one point at which the great 
body of believers need to be put right. We have 
too readily supposed that we have discharged our 
whole duty and met our obligations when we have 
made liberal offerings to the Lord. But to give 
our possessions and not to give our own selves is 
a very faulty sort of consecration. The giving of 
money, however much, can never be accepted by 
God as a substitute for the giving of ourselves. 
Nor, on the other hand, is our consecration complete 
if, with the giving of ourselves to Christ, there is no 
surrender of our property and possessions to him. 
He who gives himself and does not give his property 
is dangerously near becoming a follower of Ananias. 
He is certainly keeping back " part of the price." 
God owns all and all therefore should be reckoned 
his, yielded to him because his, and then received 



Stewardship in Giving 91 

from him as a sacred trust to be held or used in just 
the way he wishes it to be held or used. 

Here is the crucial point in stewardship. Failure The Crucial 
here means failure everywhere. No man who does om 
not reach this standard of consecration can be a 
faithful steward of God. He may prosper in busi- 
ness, he may amass a fortune, and he may give large 
amounts of money to God's cause, but if he and his 
are not consecrated to God he fails as to his steward- 
ship. 

Another essential to right giving is love. " If I Loves Debt 
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, . . but have 
not love, it profiteth me nothing" (1 Cor. 13 : 3). 
Love to God and men must be the gracious spring 
from which all our gifts shall flow. Giving, that 
flows from love, is godlike. " God so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son." We 
must give because we love. Loveless giving is 
lifeless giving. It is void of the compassion the 
world needs and of the cheer for which it hungers. 
Giving may be liberal, willing-hearted, systematic, 
even heroic and sacrificial, and yet if love be absent, 
as it may, it will be tremendously discounted in its 
value in the sight of God. The apostle urged the 
Corinthian Christians to give that they might there- 
by prove the sincerity of their love (2 Cor. 8:8). 
With what purity of motive, what gladness of heart, 
what completeness of self-denial, what largeness of 
amount, will men give, when the love of Christ 
fills their souls and constrains them. He in whom 



92 Stewardship and Missions 

love reigns will never find it hard to give. The 
divine claims will be readily recognized and lovingly 
responded to. When he sees his brother in need, 
whether it be his brother at home in his own land, 
his brother immigrant who has come to live in his 
country, or his brother man far beyond the sea — 
when he sees his brother here or there in need of 
the bread of life — he will not shut up his com- 
passion from him, but will do his utmost to meet his 
need by sending the gospel to him. And he will do 
this because the love of God abides in him. 
The Secret of When the Christian steward meets these two 

r allure 

essential conditions of right giving, it will not be 
difficult for him to conform to the general rules and 
directions which are given in the Scriptures for our 
guidance in this department of our stewardship. 
Our giving is too important a transaction both for 
ourselves and others to be done carelessly, or ac- 
cording to our own thoughts and feelings. If there 
has been failure in our giving, if wrong methods 
have been practised, if the needs of God's work in 
the world have not been met, it will generally be 
found that it has been because the instructions of 
the word of God have not been known, or have 
been disobeyed. " In other things believers have 
everywhere zealously declared the Bible to be their 
only rule of faith and practice ; but in the matter of 
giving we have given ourselves a great deal of lati- 
tude, considered our own personal convenience, re- 
sorted to our own plans, adopted our own propor- 



Stewardship in Giving 93 

tions, chosen our own way of doing things, and have 
scarcely thought to inquire whether our Lord and 
Master had given us any directions in the Scrip- 
tures concerning the giving of money for the carry- 
ing on of his worship and work. The Bible has 
been left out and all sorts of human inventions have 
been adopted to raise money. We have chosen our 
own way and have not hearkened to the law of the 
Lord. This should be so no longer. ' to the law 
and the testimony ! ' The whole question should 
be looked at in the pure and unerring light of God's 
word. In no other way can questions about giving 
be satisfactorily settled. Let the voice of the Lord 
be heard in the midst of the church ; let God say by 
what system of giving he would have his gospel 
spread and his work carried on, and when he speaks 
let all men be silent and ready to learn " ( The 
author, in " Systematic Giving " ) . 

As we turn to the Scriptures one of the most Giving as 
important teachings we find on this subject is that ^Owners 
our giving should be on a stewardship basis. We 
are stewards, and not owners, and therefore we 
should give as stewards and not as owners. For 
example, God dealt with the children of Israel as a 
nation of stewards. They occupied the land of 
Canaan as stewards, and not as owners. Concerning 
the land, God reminded them that it was his. " And 
the land shall not be sold in perpetuity ; for the land 
is mine" (Lev. 25 : 23). The parable of The Hus- 
bandmen in Matt. 21 : 33-43, distinctly teaches that 



94 Stewardship and Missions 

the Jewish people were responsible as a nation of 
stewards. The terms of their stewardship were 
clearly laid down for them, and when they were un- 
faithful, and failed to bring to God the tithes and 
offerings in recognition of his ownership and their 
stewardship, the land was taken from them and 
they were scattered among the nations. 
David's When David and the people brought their offer- 
am ings to the Lord for the building of the temple, as 
recorded in I Chron. 29, they gave as stewards. In 
presenting those offerings to God, David said: 
" Thine, O Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power, 
and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for 
all that is in the heavens and in the earth is thine ; 
thine is the kingdom, O Jehovah, and thou art ex- 
alted above all. . . All things come of thee, and of 
thine own have we given thee" (ver. 11 and 14). 
In this definite acknowledgment of God's ownership 
of all things the giving of David and the people 
was placed on a stewardship basis. 
High-level The recognition of this truth would alone lift all 
our giving to a higher level because it distinctly 
emphasizes the fact of God's sovereign rights in 
what we have or acquire; it reminds us of our de- 
pendence upon him in all things, and recognizes our 
partnership and co-operation with him in the work 
he is doing in the world. 
An Ancient God should have the first place in our giving. 
That is, we should lay aside a portion for God out 
of our income before using it for any other purpose. 



Stewardship in Giving 95 

This is one of God's ancient lessons in giving. 
When the children of Israel reaped their harvests, or 
gathered in the vintage, they were not to forget God 
till all was gathered in and then send the gleaners 
out to pick up what was left and bring that to him. 
They were not to bring to the Lord their God, who 
had given them the harvest, the mere leavings and 
gleanings of the field, the least and the poorest. 
They were instructed to bring him the first ripe 
fruits. " The first of the first-fruits of thy ground 
shalt thou bring unto the house of Jehovah thy 
God" (Exod. 23 : 19; see also Exod. 34 : 26; 
Deut. 18:4; 2 Chron. 31:5). "Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God and his righteousness. " The inter- 
ests of the kingdom of God should be supreme 
in all our stewardship. Whenever we receive our 
income we should recognize God's ownership of all 
we receive and our stewardship by at once laying 
aside a portion for God. We are not to spend, and 
spend, until only a little is left, and then offer the 
great Creator and Giver of all things the mere 
leavings of our income. God should be first in our 
giving, not last. This is a divine law in connection 
with our giving that opens the door to the greatest 
joy and blessing. When the woman of Zarephath, 
in response to the request of Elijah, and in splendid 
faith, gave first of her scanty supply to God's mes- 
senger, she was rewarded by a bountiful provision 
for all the days of the famine that followed. Put 
God first in your money getting, money using, and 



9 6 



Stewardship and Missions 



The Man 

Without a 

System 



Arranging 
One's Giving 



What God 
Taught the Jew 



your money giving, and rich and abundant will be 
the grace and goodness which the Spirit of God will 
bestow upon you. 

The giving of God's stewards will be systematic 
and proportionate ; it must be in order to safeguard 
our stewardship in giving. The haphazard giver, 
the man who gives only when he feels like it, or 
when some mighty appeal moves him, who is a 
creature of circumstances or of emotions in his 
giving, is very likely to withhold when he ought to 
give, and when he does give he is almost certain to 
give a far smaller amount than he should. He never 
knows what he is going to give, or what he has 
given, he usually thinks the amount for the year is 
very much larger than it is. Keeping an account of 
his giving for a year would reveal to him how small 
his giving really is. 

The systematic giver conscientiously considers 
the whole question of his giving and arranges it ac- 
cording to some plan. He does not leave his giving 
till some appeal moves him to act. It is made a 
matter between himself and his Lord, and he ar- 
ranges his giving in the way he believes his Master 
wants him to. 

Systematic giving is scriptural. The Old Testa- 
ment contains the most elaborate system of giving 
that has ever been practised on earth. The Jew 
was not left to give in a careless or spasmodic 
way. First-fruits, tithes, free-will offerings — all had 
a place in the system that God gave to him. And 



Stewardship in Giving 97 

however much men may object to tithing, admit- 
ting even that tithing is not binding on Christians, 
it still remains that systematic giving was most 
clearly and emphatically taught in the Old Testa- 
ment. 

The New Testament does not do away with sys- PauTsPlan 
tern. It enjoins it. " Upon the first day of the week 
let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may 
prosper, that no collections be made when I come " 
(1 Cor. 16 : 2). Here is a complete and simple 
system for every steward. It involves weekly, uni- 
versal, and proportionate giving. No one is exempt, 
and all are to give systematically. " Not to give 
regularly is not to treat God fairly, not to give pro- 
portionately is not to treat him honestly." The 
question of tithing, the scriptural proportion, which 
would properly have a place here, is left for a full 
discussion in the next chapter. 

Our giving should increase with the increase of Increasing or 
our income. God does not give us an increase of Standm s Stai 
wealth to heap up for or to spend upon ourselves. "If 
riches increase set not your heart upon them " for 
yourself. The divine command is " Honor the Lord 
with thy substance and with the -first-fruits of all 
thine increase." One of the reasons why there has 
been such a lack of funds for the great missionary 
enterprises of the church lies in the fact that multi- 
tudes of professing Christians have failed to keep 
pace in their giving with their increased ability to 
give. While their gains have greatly multiplied, 



98 Stewardship and Missions 

their giving to God for his world-work has stood 
still. It is a most deplorable fact that there are 
church-members who are giving no more to the 
Lord's work now than they did fifteen or twenty 
years ago, though their income is many times more 
now than it was then. Their income has been put 
into their business, or locked up in real estate, or 
spent in more costly living, while the Lord's treasury 
has not received any benefit from their increased 
prosperity. How many there are like the New 
England deacon who, when he was a poor boy work- 
ing for fifty cents a day, resolved to give a dollar a 
year for foreign missions, and twenty years later, 
when he had become a wealthy man, was still con- 
scientiously giving the dollar a year to foreign 
missions and thinking that he was doing all he 
should. The dollar standard is a snare of the devil 
to hosts of the saints. 
A Searching President Augustus H. Strong said in an address 

Statement r ,- , 

a few years ago concerning the denomination to 
which he belongs : " We have probably a hundred 
times the financial means that we possessed fifty 
years ago, but our giving has not increased in any 
such proportion. Instead of being multiplied by a 
hundred, our gifts have hardly been multiplied 
by ten." What wonder that the cause of Christ 
suffers for the want of funds when we of this 
generation do not give over one-tenth as much as 
our forefathers did in proportion to our means. 
Increased income should mean increased giving. 



Stewardship in Giving 



99 



Nathaniel Cobb, of the last century, is a fine 
instance of a faithful steward who determined to 
increase his offerings with the increase of his 
income. At twenty-three years of age he com- 
mitted himself to the following covenant : " By 
the grace of God I will never be worth more than 
fifty thousand dollars. By the grace of God I 
will give one-fourth of the net proceeds of my busi- 
ness to charitable and religious uses. If I am ever 
worth twenty thousand dollars I will give one-half 
of all my net profits. If I am worth thirty thousand 
dollars I will give three-fourths and the whole after 
fifty thousand. So help me, God, or give to a more 
faithful steward and set me aside." He lived 
thirteen years after making that covenant, and on 
his deathbed gave this testimony : " By the grace 
of God, nothing else, I have been enabled under 
these resolutions to give away more than forty 
thousand dollars. How good the Lord has been to 
me." 

After some such example as this, hundreds of 
young men might well determine steadily to increase 
their giving with the increase of their income. 
While there are many reasons why a tenth should be 
the minimum proportion that we should give, there 
are many who should give more than one-tenth ; who, 
indeed, should, as conscientiously as Nathaniel Cobb 
did, fix on some scale of gradually increasing their 
gifts to the Lord's work as they prospered in busi- 
ness and their income grew larger. It is in this 



Nathaniel 

Cobb's 

Covenant 



What Others 
Might Do 



ioo Stewardship and Missions 

constant enlargement in the consecration of sub- 
stance to the cause of Christ that the true steward 
finds his greatest joy. " He that soweth bounti- 
fully shall reap also bountifully." 
An Inspiring The following testimony from one of the most 
estimony fefthfyi stewards known to the writer puts to 
shame many who keep their offerings at a low level 
in the midst of great increases, and who when losses 
come quickly cut down their giving to a still lower 
level. " The needs of the work have appealed to 
my sense of obligation and responsibility, and my 
aim has been to do all I could irrespective of the 
tithe of my income or, indeed, of any income at all. 
There have been several years when I had no in- 
come at all, losses in business having wiped out all 
profits, but during those years my gifts for church 
and important lines of work, such as home and 
foreign missions were practically maintained unim- 
paired, although all such contributions, as well as 
my living were a draft on my principal. Except 
as some people might consider it a hardship to draw 
on their principal to maintain gifts, I cannot say that 
my circumstances at any time during this period 
have been such as to cause my gifts to involve any 
real sacrifice. It has involved economy, but not real 
sacrifice. My giving has been a real joy, and I can 
truly say there is no other use to which I put my 
money that yields me so much pleasure and satis- 
faction as its use for benevolent and religious pur- 
poses. Naturally, therefore, the constant tendency 



Stewardship in Giving ioi 

is to increase my gifts." With substantially the 
same income this splendid business man, and conse- 
crated steward for God, has increased his offerings 
over fifty per cent, in three years, and they now 
amount to over eight thousand dollars a year. This 
is an example of heroic giving, for it is an example 
of increased giving even when there is no increase 
in the income. 

The faithful steward will give intelligently. How Knowing About 
unwise many are in their giving, unwise because &e Objects 
they are thoughtless. They do not carefully inform 
themselves concerning the objects to which they 
give. They do not find out the needs and magnitude 
of those objects, nor do they know very fully what 
good is being accomplished by what is given. A 
steward should attend to the duties of his steward- 
ship in a business-like manner. What business man 
would invest his money, as a matter of business, 
without making diligent inquiry as to the probable 
results of that investment, or without carefully 
studying all the circumstances that would affect it? 
And yet how often men give just because they are 
asked, with no intelligent appreciation of the object 
to which they give. They give and dismiss the matter 
from their minds. Nor does it matter much what 
the object is. The great work of giving the gospel 
to the millions of heathendom is treated with no 
more thoughtfulness and consideration than some 
insignificant matter in connection with the work of 
the local church. Faithfulness in stewardship re- 



102 Stewardship and Missions 

quires intelligent action. God's steward should keep 
himself informed concerning the different depart- 
ments of the Lord's work. He should keep himself 
in personal touch with all the activities of the local 
church. He should know about the work that is 
being done by the benevolent institutions of his own 
community. He should be familiar with the home 
and foreign missionary movements of the church, 
especially those of his own denomination. And 
then, knowing what is being done and what is 
needed to be done, he can come to some intelligent 
conclusion as to his duty .toward these various 
objects as God's steward. There can be little satis- 
faction or joy in giving unless we give intelligently. 
An Evil in A steward who would be faithful will not give 
indiscriminately. There are times when it is the 
duty of a steward not to give, for there are times 
when giving will do more harm than good. Busi- 
ness men of our great cities are besieged, day after 
day, by all sorts of applications for assistance. 
Along with those who seek help for legitimate ob- 
jects there mingles a great host of impostors and 
frauds. It is no virtue to give to everybody. Yet 
there are kind and sympathetic men who find it al- 
most impossible to refuse. Such men are soon 
found out by the tramps and humbugs of society, 
and a constant drain is made upon their resources 
by this class. I have known men who have given 
away so much indiscriminately, who have responded 
to so many appeals, the character of which they 



Stewardship in Giving 103 

could not or did not investigate, that they had com- 
paratively little left to give to the great enterprises 
of God for the salvation of the world. There are 
thousands to-day seeking the sympathy of Christian 
men to whom it might be said as Jesus said to some 
who came to him : " Ye seek me not because ye 
saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the 
loaves, and were filled." We do- not say that no 
needy men should be helped, we do not say that the 
Christian steward should respond to none of the 
appeals that are made to him by the endless proces- 
sion of people that comes to his office; but we do 
say, that as a Christian steward he will exercise care 
and good judgment in his giving, and will be satis- 
fied in every instance that he is doing what his Lord 
and Master would have him do. He may waste his 
Lord's money just as much in this way as in useless 
expenditures upon himself. 

Our giving should be stimulated by the immeas- A Multiplying 
urable good that may be accomplished by our gifts. 
The consecrated offering becomes a power in the 
hands of Christ. What wonders he can work with 
what his stewards commit to him. With the few 
loaves and fishes he can feed thousands. This fact, 
however, furnishes no ground for the mental argu- 
ment which we fear is sometimes made, viz., " be- 
cause the Lord Jesus can do such great things with 
the small amounts that are given him, therefore, I 
need not give much." It should be remembered 
rather that when Jesus fed the five thousand the lad 



P 



ower 



104 Stewardship and Missions 

gave all he had. At the same time, this fact of 
Christ's multiplying power should encourage the one 
who cannot give much to give his little, and should 
also intensely inspire those with more abundant 
means to make the largest offerings possible in 
order that, under the wonder-working power of 
Christ, the mightier works might be done and the 
starving millions be fed with the bread of life. 
Money " What a wonderful religion Christianity is. It 
takes money, the very embodiment of the power of 
this world, with its self-interest, its covetousness, 
and its pride, and it changes it into an instrument for 
God's service and glory. • 

Two Standards " Think of the church and its work in the world ; 
of missions at home and abroad, and the thousand 
agencies for winning men from sin to God and holi- 
ness. Is it indeed true that the coin of this world, 
by being cast into God's treasury in the right spirit, 
can receive the stamp of the mint of heaven, and be 
accepted in exchange for heavenly blessings? It is 
true. The gifts of faith and love go not only into 
the church's treasury, but into God's own treasury, 
and are paid out again in heavenly goods. And that 
not according to the earthly standard of value, 
where the question always is, How much? but ac- 
cording to the standard of heaven, where men's 
judgments of much and little, great and small, are 
all unknown" (Andrew Murray, in "Money"). 

A Great Work j n Qur g} v i n g we should keep in mind the magni- 

Penny Basis tude and glory of the work to be done for Christ. 



Stewardship in Giving 105 

The business that has been committed to the church 
of Jesus Christ is the greatest business in the uni- 
verse. It is a world-embracing business. It is 
nothing less than the taking of the gospel to every 
tribe and nation on earth, indeed, to the uttermost 
man of every tribe. " Preach the gospel to every 
creature," is the great command. To do this in- 
volves tens of thousands of pastors, evangelists, 
missionaries, teachers, physicians, Bible women, the 
building of houses, schools, church-buildings, hos- 
pitals, the printing of Bibles and religious books, 
and much else besides. It is a great and costly 
work that has been committed to the church. And 
yet how often it has been treated as though it were 
a mere penny affair, a nickel or dime business. 
Indeed, by our mistaken methods and our short- 
sighted plans, we have belittled the whole great 
work of God. We have put it on a penny basis. 
We have so persistently taught the children to give 
pennies that they have come to regard the smallest 
coin in the land as the proper coin to bring to God's 
house. Many, alas ! when they have grown up have 
not learned better. One Sunday morning a well- 
to-do church-member, who had been accustomed 
to give each of his three children a penny for the 
Sunday-school collection, found that he had only 
two pennies at hand, and knowing that it would 
not do to give to one more than he gave the others, 
he gave them each a nickel. Immediately the chil- 
dren exclaimed, " Why, papa, they don't want 



106 Stewardship and Missions 

nickels, nickels are too much; they only want pen- 
nies." Already in their minds the conception had 
been formed that the kingdom of God was only a 
penny business. 
A Time for We need a new vision of the magnitude and 
camgug_ur ur g enC y f fa e work of world-wide evangelization. 
We need to see that the time has come for Christian 
men and women to give on a very much larger scale 
than ever they have, in order that the great and 
pressing needs of the work may be met, and the glad 
news of redemption carried to the waiting millions 
of earth. Where we have been giving a dollar 
we now need to give ten, where hundreds we should 
now give thousands, and where thousands, tens of 
thousands. The church needs a few more men like 
R. Arthington, of Leeds, England, who in addi- 
tion to large gifts made to missions in his lifetime, 
bequeathed $2,500,000 to be used for missionary 
extension. It is one of the hopeful signs of the 
times that the tide of large gifts has begun to set in 
toward the work of missions. " The next ten years 
should witness a much greater number of large gifts. 
There are men who have been giving thousands to 
educational and philanthropic objects where they 
have been giving hundreds to missions. The time 
has come when there should be as great gifts made 
toward missionary colleges and universities and 
other forms of missionary work as are now being 
made to higher education in America ; first, because 
of the comparatively greater need, and secondly, be- 



Stewardship in Giving 107 

cause of the tremendous possibilities for good of 
such gifts at this particular stage of the missionary 
movement " {John R. Mott, in " The Pastor and 
Modern Missions). 

Our giving should have in it the elements of Faith and 
faith and sacrifice. We should sometimes at least Sacnfice 
catch the spirit of the Christ on the cross and make 
a real sacrifice for his sake. 

A man and his wife, Germans, were converted in Giving up a 
Brooklyn. On the day they were welcomed into the rip or ns 
church they placed in the pastor's hand three hundred 
and seventy-five dollars, to be applied toward the 
extinction of the church debt. They had been sa- 
ving it through years of their wedded life, hoping 
some day to take a trip to their fatherland. They 
denied themselves that pleasure and said, " The 
love of Christ so constrains us that we gladly lay 
it all on his altar for him." 

A Swedish girl was met at Ellis Island by a faith- Giving Ten 
f ul missionary and led to Christ. Out of the first £ oll f s ° ut n of 

J 1 welve Dollars 

month's wages of twelve dollars she brought ten 
to the missionary, saying, " I want to help some one 
else find the Saviour I have found." 

San Te was a convert from heathenism in Burma. An Example 
He became a teacher in a mission school. At the m Burma 
end of his first month he brought his salary for the 
month, twenty-five rupees, equal to eight dollars and 
a half to the missionary, and said he wished to give 
it to the work. The missionary in surprise said, 
" San Te, how is this ? " In the most modest way 



108 Stewardship and Missions 

he replied, " Teacher, I made up my mind a long 
time ago that if ever I had a salary of my own I 
would always give God the tenth. And I have 
thought too that I should like to give my first 
month's earning all to him." 
Giving Eighty A widow in Doctor Gordon's church, in Boston, 

Per Cent 

and Living on n ' vm g m one room of a tenement house, gave eight 
Twenty hundred dollars in the foreign mission collection. 
When the doctor called and asked her how she could 
give so much, she said, " Here I am comfortable and 
have enough, living upon two hundred dollars a 
year. But I do not know how I could go to meet 
my Lord if I lived upon the eight hundred dollars 
and only gave him two hundred." 

A Duty of the L et ; t b e remembered that it is the duty of the 
rich to make sacrifices for Christ as much as it is the 
duty of the poor. In simpler living and larger 
giving many could find ways of manifesting more of 
the spirit of Christ in their stewardship of wealth. 
Legacies a discussion of the stewardship of wealth would 
scarcely be complete without some consideration of 
the question of legacies. 
Institutions That great benefits have come to many religious 
^Legacies societies and benevolent institutions through the be- 
quests which have been left to them is unquestioned. 
Many of these institutions which are to-day a bene- 
diction to humanity, owe their existence very largely 
to the legacies which they have received. In some 
instances the bequests of the dead have been greater 
than the gifts of the living. Legacies are un- 




GIVING ALL HER LIVING 

Mark 12 : 41-44 



Stewardship in Giving 109 

doubtedly a very important source of revenue to 
many departments of Christian work, and whatever 
objections may be made to this manner of disposing 
of wealth must be based on very strong grounds. 
Can such objections be advanced? 

It must be admitted that it is better for rich men Perils Besetting 
to so devise that a large portion of their wealth shall Bec * uests 
after their death go directly to institutions which 
have for their object the furthering of God's king- 
dom and the welfare of humanity, than that it should 
be so distributed that it would neither glorify God 
nor bring blessings to men. Legacies in many in- 
stances have been a greater curse than blessing. 
Wealth, left to be distributed after the one who 
possessed it is dead, is always more or less exposed 
to this peril. But admitting that it is better for a 
man to give what he leaves to good objects, than for 
it to be so left that it will do little or no good in the 
world, is it better for him to so leave it than for him 
faithfully to administer it as a sacred trust while he 
lives? Surely all the arguments of common sense 
and advisability are on the side of a man being 
the executor of his own property. By being so he 
protects his money from the often strange and un- 
certain elements that find their way into the adminis- 
tration of wills. Wills are often broken, and even 
when they are not, the leakages in law costs often 
absorb a large percentage of the property left for 
distribution, and the desire and purpose of the 
testator fails to be carried out. Should not one who 



no 



Stewardship and Missions 



Need of 
Present Action 



A Commendable 
Provision 



is God's steward protect the money, which God has 
placed in his hands to use for him, against these and 
other dangers which surround money left by wills? 
And even if there were no such dangers, the man 
himself would obtain greater satisfaction by giving 
during his lifetime and administering his money ac- 
cording to the will of God, and he would at the same 
time be more fully meeting the obligations which rest 
upon him as a divinely appointed steward. 

There are other very important reasons why 
men should give while they live. The world needs 
immediate action on the part of the church, and while 
the millionaire locks his money up by a will it must 
wait for years before it can go forth on its mission 
of mercy and blessing among men. Souls by the 
million are perishing now, the doors of opportunity 
for saving them are open now, and God by his Spirit 
says to his church, " Behold now is the day of sal- 
vation." There should be no delay; if men intend 
to give of their substance for the evangelization of 
the world they should do it at once, while they live, 
and back up their gifts by a loving heart, and living 
prayers, and a living personality and character. At 
best giving by legacy is little more than giving 
by proxy. God wants the man himself. The man 
is of more value than his money, and it is the living, 
consecrated, praying man who adds value to his 
money. 

Some missionary societies make provision to 
receive property which men may wish to devote 



Stewardship in Giving in 

to their work, and pay interest upon the amount 
given in trust to the donors while they live. This 
plan has much to commend it. For those who are 
dependent upon the income from their money for a 
living, but who desire at the same time to devote 
their money wholly to the Lord's work when they 
will no longer need the income from it, it furnishes 
a safe investment; it prevents all litigation and 
expense and consequent loss over a will, while it 
enables a man to be more directly his own executor 
than is possible under a will. 

" Freely ye have received, freely give." In utter- Passing the 
ing these words, the Lord Jesus announced to his Blessing On 
disciples a divine method of blessing men which we 
find running through all the Scriptures, a method 
which, if fully recognized among men, would result 
in such a wide-spread distribution of beneficence, of 
sympathy, of helpfulness, of blessing, and bright- 
ness, as this poor, sinful, suffering world has never 
known before. God gives to us that we may give 
to others. We receive bountifully of the things of 
God that we may freely pass them on to others that 
they may be blessed. We are not to be sponges, 
forever absorbing. We are to receive that we may 
give. God blesses us that we may bless. It is not 
the blessings we receive that gladden, but the bless- 
ings we bestow. The water-pipes all over the city 
may be filled with water and no one be benefited a 
particle thereby. It is the water that flows out of 
the pipes that blesses the inhabitants. And we may 



H2 Stewardship and Missions 

be enriched and increased with goods and the world 
be no better off. It is what we pass on of our sub- 
stance that blesses and brightens men's lives and 
saves them. As God's stewards, keep giving out 
and God will keep pouring in. 

Give as you would if an angel 

Awaited your gift at the door; 
Give as you would if to-morrow 

Found you where giving would be no more ; 
Give as you would to the Master 

If you met his searching look; 
Give as you would of your substance 
\w If his hand your offering took. 



QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER V 

Aim : To See Clearly Our Obligation to Give, and the 
Principles that Should Govern and Inspire Us in 
Our Giving 

i. Why do men fail to give as stewards? 

2. What relation to God specially emphasizes the duty of 

the steward to give? 

3. On what ground is withholding from God unreasonable 

and unchristian? 

4. What facts place the Christian under obligation to 

give? 

5. About what should we be chiefly concerned in our 

giving? 

6. Why is the giving of ourselves the first essential in 

our giving? 

7. Why should love have a prominent place in our 

giving? 



Stewardship in Giving 113 

8. What follows from a neglect to study the Scriptures 

on this subject? 

9. Explain what is meant by giving on a stewardship 

basis. 
10. Why is it important that our giving should be on a 

stewardship basis? 
n. Name one of the earliest lessons that God taught men 

in giving. 

12. What advantage is there in laying aside God's portion 

first? 

13. Why is it unwise to be governed by our own feelings, 

or by the appeals of others, in our giving? 

14. What is systematic giving? 

15. What was Paul's system? 

16. Do you know anything better than this New Testament 

plan? 

17. Why do men not give more when they receive more? 

18. What lessons are taught by Nathaniel Cobb's covenant? 

19. Would you be willing to give as liberally on the same 

basis of prosperity? 

20. Should we always cut down our giving when losses 

come? 

21. What is necessary to intelligent giving, and why is it 

important that we should give intelligently? 

22. What evils accompany indiscriminate giving? 

23. What fact should greatly stimulate our giving? 

24. Why is the evangelization of the world a great and 

costly work, and how has it been belittled? 

25. Why should giving now be scaled up to larger amounts 

than ever? 

26. How should faith and the spirit of Christ be mani- 

fested in our giving? 

27. What arguments are there in favor of men disposing 

of their wealth by legacies? 

28. What objections may be made against giving by 

legacies ? 
H 



ii4 Stewardship and Missions 

29. State some reasons why men should give while they 

live. 

30. What provision do some missionary societies make 

with those who wish to leave money to them after 
death, and what do you think of this arrangement? 

31. What societies in your denomination will pay an- 

nuities on money thus received? 

32. How may we open the channel of blessing for others 

and at the same time be blessed ourselves? 

33. What can we do to stimulate others to better steward- 

ship in giving? 



VI 

STEWARDSHIP AND TITHING 



It is no stumbling-block to us if Christ does not reiterate 
the old Sabbatic laws, and no more so if he does not 
repeat this law of the tenth. Why should he? He ac- 
cepted them; the Jews accepted them; his disciples ac- 
cepted them. Why should he waste his time in talking of 
institutions which were as old as creation and the valid- 
ity of which no one then thought of disputing? . . . 
Christ did not come again to take up and teach the 
primer. So it happens naturally enough that, though 
the Sabbath is one of the strictest requirements of God 
upon us, there is not one word in the New Testament 
enjoining its observance. It is almost the same with the 
law of the tenth, the exception being that we do happen 
to have a single conclusive utterance of Christ upon that 
matter, when he said to the Pharisees that in paying the 
tenth they were doing their duty. . . There can be no ques- 
tion then that the law of the tenth is binding on us who 
succeed Moses, as it was on the patriarchs who preceded 
him and on all godly men, and that all the many admoni- 
tions of the New Testament touching stewardship should 
remind us faithfully to render unto the Lord that tenth 
which he claims as peculiarly his own. 

— B. B. Bosworth. 

It is objected that the erection of this Old Testament 
command of tithing into an absolute rule for Christians 
to obey is unchristian. Jesus, it is said, loved spontaneity 
and freedom too much to tolerate specific rules. He dealt 
with principles, not rules. Grant the objection all the force 
it has. Grant that Jesus would not approve the erection 
of the command to tithe into an absolute rule, to the 
principle upon which the command to tithe rested he was 
unalterably loyal. God is the owner of all, and we must 
recognize it by stated contributions. In this way our 
goods, instead of being religiously injurious to us, become 
a bond which unites us to God. _ Gerald D . Heuver. 



VI 



STEWARDSHIP AND TITHING 



"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there 
may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, 
saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of 
heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not 
be room enough to receive it" (Mai. 3 : 10). 

BECAUSE of the prominence that is being given 
to the subject at the present time, and because 
of its importance as a part of the greater subject 
of Christian stewardship, a chapter is devoted to the 
question of tithing. By many the subject is misunder- 
stood, and misunderstanding is the cause of preju- 
dice and opposition. The aim in this study will be to 
consider this whole subject in its true scriptural set- 
ting, and to meet fairly and reasonably some of the 
objections that are made against the practice of 
tithing by Christians. 

It should be clearly understood at the outset that 
stewardship is more than tithing and comes before 
it. A great mistake has been made by some in pla- 
cing such emphasis on tithing that the duties of 
stewardship have been overlooked. Tithing is not 
all of stewardship, it is only a part, and therefore 
should not be made to eclipse the responsibilities of 

117 



An Important 
Subject 



Stewardship 
More Than 
Tithing 



n8 Stewardship and Missions 

the steward in the administration of his entire in- 
come for the glory of God. 
Tithing Not The other extreme from this view is that steward- 
ship excludes or supersedes tithing ; that since all be- 
longs to God, and we are to administer all as 
stewards for him, there is no room or place for tith- 
ing in the practice of stewardship. To carry this 
argument to its legitimate conclusion would as 
effectively do away with all giving as with tithing. 
An Expression While tithing is not the chief thing nor the most 
ewar s lp i m p 0r f- an j- thing in stewardship it has its place 
there. To say that our stewardship does not begin 
till we have paid the tenth is to misapprehend the 
scope of stewardship, and the relation between 
stewardship and tithing. Tithing is an expression 
of our stewardship in giving. We tithe in recogni- 
tion of God's ownership of the whole, just as a 
tenant pays rent in recognition of the landlord's 
ownership of, or rights in, the house or farm. 
Paying rent entitles the tenant to use the house or 
farm, but it does not constitute him the owner of it. 
The tithe is paid not simply because it is the Lord's, 
but because all one has, or acquires, is his. Paying 
tithes does not constitute a man the owner of the 
nine-tenths that are left. God's rights in the re- 
mainder are just the same as before the tenth is paid. 
He owns it. It is written, " The tithe is the Lord's." 
It is also written, " The earth is the Lord's and the 
fulness thereof," and " the silver is mine, and the 
gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts." 



Stewardship and Tithing 



119 



Tithing and 
Administration 



" When the priest was consecrated, the blood of The Tithe 
the ram was put upon the right ear, the thumb of e P resen 
the right hand, and the great toe of the right 
foot, to indicate that he should come and go, use 
his hands and powers of mind, in short, his entire 
self, in the service of God. These parts of the 
body were selected as representative of the whole 
man. The tithe was likewise representative. ' For 
if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy ' 
(Rom. 11 : 16). Tithes were devoted to certain 
uses, specified by God, in recognition of the fact that 
all belonged to him " (Josiah Strong, in " Our 
Country " ) . 

Stewardship is not so much the giving of a por- 
tion to God as it is the administration of all for God. 
The laying aside of one-tenth of one's income for 
the Lord's work is a part, and a very important part, 
of the administration of the whole. There may be a 
faithful stewardship of income or property without 
tithing, and there may be a conscientious laying 
aside of one-tenth of one's income for the Lord's 
work without a deep sense of one's relation to God 
as his steward. Faithful stewardship manifests 
itself in a definite and practical way, however, when 
it issues in tithing the income, while tithing rests on 
its surest foundation when it is based on the funda- 
mental principles of stewardship, and is practised in 
loyalty to those principles. Stewardship and tith- 
ing should go together. The faithful steward will 
acquire and administer wealth in relation to the 



on 



120 Stewardship and Missions 

tithe. The tenth will not be the limit of his giving, 
it will only be the starting-point, the minimum. 
" The tithe," says the " Sunday School Times/' " is 
not the outermost limit of a believer's duty in re- 
ligious giving ; but it is the innermost limit. Many a 
Christian ought to give far more than this." 
The Scriptures Keeping in mind these general truths concerning 
mg the proper place of tithing in relation to stewardship 
we shall be better prepared to consider intelligently 
the teachings of Scripture on the subject. In order 
that the full force of these Scriptures may be ap- 
parent all the principal passages that mention tith- 
ing are here quoted : 

" And he gave him tithes of all " (Gen. 14 : 20). 
" And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, 
shall be God's house ; and of all that thou shalt give 
me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee " ( Gen. 
28 : 22). "And all the tithe of the land, whether 
of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is 
the Lord's : it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man 
will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add 
thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the 
tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatso- 
ever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy 
unto the Lord" (Lev. 2J : 30-32). "And, behold, 
I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in 
Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they 
serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the con- 
gregation " (Num. 18 : 21). "Thus shall ye speak 
to the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take 



Stewardship and Tithing 121 

of the children of Israel the tithes which I have 
given you from them for your inheritance, then ye 
shall offer up an heave offering of it for the Lord, 
even a tenth part of the tithe" (Num. 18 : 26). 
" Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, 
that the field bringeth forth year by year. At the 
end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the 
tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay 
it up within thy gates. And the Levite, because he 
hath no part nor inheritance with thee, and the 
stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which 
are within thy gates, shall come and shall eat, 
and be satisfied; that the Lord thy God may bless 
thee in all the work of thine hand which thou 
doest " (Deut. 14 : 22, 28, 29). " And as soon as the 
commandment came abroad, the children of Israel 
brought in abundance the first-fruits of the corn, 
wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of 
the field ; and the tithe of all things brought they in 
abundantly (2 Chron. 31 : 5). "Then brought all 
Judah the tithe of the corn, and the new wine, and 
the oil, unto the treasuries " (Neh. 13 : 12). " Bring 
ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may 
be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, 
saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the 
windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, 
that there shall not be room enough to receive it " 
(Mai. 3 : 10). " Woe unto you, scribes and Phari- 
sees, hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, 
and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters 



122 Stewardship and Missions 

of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; these ought 
ye to have done and not to leave the other undone " 
(Matt. 23 : 23). "Now consider how great this 
man was unto whom the patriarch Abraham gave 
the tenth of the spoils. And verily they that are 
of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the 
priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of 
the people according to the law, that is, of their 
brethren, though they come out of the loins of 
Abraham. But he, whose descent is not counted 
from them, received tithes of Abraham. And here 
men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth 
them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. And 
as I may so say, Levi also who received tithes, paid 
tithes in Abraham " (Heb. 7 : 4-6, 8, 9). 
Truths Taught There are some things taught in these passages 
by Scriptures w j 1 j c ] 1 are WO rthy of special notice. 

Tithing was practised by farmers. The farmer 
who says he cannot tithe should consider this. 

The men who were the ministers of the house of 
God were supported by tithes, and they in turn of- 
fered to the Lord a tenth of the tithes they received. 

Orphans and widows, and the needy generally, 
were cared for by a special tithe that was given 
every three years. 

God's blessing was promised to all who faithfully 
brought their tithes to him. 

When the people brought in the tithes, all the 
needs connected with the house of God and the 
services thereof were abundantly supplied. 



Stewardship and Tithing 



123 



Method 



Practice 



Jesus commended tithing 

As Abraham gave a tenth of all to Melchizedek, 
the type of Christ, it is surely reasonable that we 
should give a tenth of all to Christ himself, made a 
priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. 

Even if the law of tithing were abrogated, and A Sensible 
if it could be shown that the principle is not in any 
way binding on those in the Christian dispensation, 
the facts and lessons presented in the above Scrip- 
tures would at least suggest that the laying aside of 
a tenth of one's income for the Lord is a most 
sensible method of giving. 

But we are not under obligation to tithe simply An Ancient 
because the Jews did. Tithing was practised by 
men long before the Jewish nation had an existence. 
" The law did not create tithes, it recognized them. 
Before law commanded tithes, tithing was wrought 
into the nature of things." It is in the fact that 
tithing was recognized as binding on men before 
the Jewish laws on tithing were given that we find 
one of the strongest reasons for tithing to-day. Let 
us, therefore, go back of the history of the people 
of Israel and study an instance of tithing that stands 
out clear from all the special Jewish laws con- 
cerning it. 

The giving of one-tenth of all by Abraham to 
Melchizedek is the first recorded instance of tithing 
in the Old Testament. It is the model for us. 
Abraham's tithing is free from all the objections 
that are made against tithing on the ground that it 



A Model 
Instance 



124 Stewardship and Missions 

is a Jewish institution. Abraham s tithing empha- 
sizes the fact that ix was a moral obligation. It was 
not as some new thing that Abraham did when he 
gave a tenth of all to Melchizedek, but as a duty 
universally recognized by the nations in Abraham's 
time, and long before. " Traces of it as something 
old, and well understood, appear in the earliest his- 
toric times among nations having little or no inter- 
course with the Jews or with each other. To sup- 
pose that so many people all hit upon the tenth is 
out of the question, and the only reasonable con- 
clusion is that they all got it like the altar, and the 
sacrifices for sin, from a common source; that it 
was a part of God's moral law originally revealed to 
man, and as such was obeyed by Abraham and after- 
ward incorporated by Moses in the Levitical Code " 
/. P. Hobson, a lawyer, in " What We Owe"). 

Abraham's tithing was the highest order of tithing 
of which we have any record. It was a higher 
order of tithing than was practised by the Jewish 
nation. The fact that Melchizedek was of a higher 
order of priests than that of the Levites, that he 
was a king-priest, made like unto the Son of God, 
and that it is written, " And Levi who received 
tithes paid tithes in Abraham," places this instance 
of tithing in the very highest rank. It is indeed 
definitely connected with Christ in the reference that 
is made to it in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The 
Levitical priesthood may be said to have been paren- 
thetical, and so also may it be said of the tithing 



Answered 



Stewardship and Tithing 125 

associated with that priesthood. But Abraham's 
tithing is distinctly said to be associated with a 
perpetual priesthood, and therefore it also is to be 
perpetual. The fact that it is such a high order 
of tithing, and is so clearly linked with Christ is a 
good reason why it should have a place in the 
practice of Christian stewardship. 

It is said sometimes that we are living in the dis- An Objection 
pensation of grace, and therefore we are not under 
obligation to any such law as tithing. But this tith- 
ing was by a man who lived his life on the basis of 
grace and faith. In the fourth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans, Abraham is held up before 
us as the great and striking instance of all previous 
history of how men are saved, not by works of 
righteousness which they have done, but by grace 
through faith. If there was nothing incompatible 
with Abraham's life of faith in the giving of tithes 
there can be nothing incompatible with the fact that 
we are living in the dispensation of grace when we 
give tithes to Christ. Since tithing was practised 
in the first instance recorded in the Bible under 
the principles of grace and faith, surely the pro- 
portion is not to be less when the dispensation of 
grace and faith and love has fully come in. " Were 
it not that we are so bent on keeping our money at 
any cost we would never offer such a senseless ex- 
cuse to the Lord for falling short of our duty, as 
when we say, ' We are not living under the law, but 
under grace.' " 



126 



Stewardship and Missions 



A Spiritual 
Service 



God's 
Ownership 
Recognized 



A Claim 
Justified 



Tithing in the 
New Testament 



Abraham's tithing was free from ceremonialism. 
With the Jews tithing was a matter of ceremony and 
ritual. The tendency of all ritual is to mere formal- 
ism. Abraham's act was of a more spiritual nature. 
It was undoubtedly an expression of his gratitude 
to God for his goodness to him in the victory he had 
just gained. Our giving is to be spiritual and not 
a matter of mere form and ceremony. Tithing is to 
be a spiritual act. 

When Abraham gave a tenth of all to God's 
representative it was in full recognition of God's 
ownership of all things. It was at this time that 
Abraham spoke of God as the possessor of heaven 
and earth. His tithing was therefore in recognition 
of God's ownership, and of his stewardship. We 
have already seen that this is the true basis for 
tithing. 

A thoughtful consideration of these characteristics 
of this first recorded instance of tithing will surely 
justify the claim that we have here the model and ex- 
ample for Christians to follow. The argument for 
tithing, as well as the justification of it, furnished 
by this instance cannot be easily set aside. 

The objection is made that tithing is not distinctly 
commanded in the New Testament, and that if it 
was intended that it should be continued in the new 
dispensation some definite instruction would have 
been given concerning it. It should be remembered 
that tithing was so well understood and so faith- 
fully practised in Christ's time, that it was not 



Stewardship and Tithing 127 

necessary to give any special instruction concerning 
it. From what the Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees, 
it is evident that there were other things that needed 
special emphasis rather than this. As Rev. B. B. 
Bosworth has put it in his tract, " The Law of the 
Tenth " : " In other words, Christ said to the Phari- 
sees, ' You carry your respect for the ancient law 
of the tenth so far that you even tithe mint and rue 
and every little herb. But I do not censure you for 
that ; you cannot be too strict or too careful in pay- 
ing such debts to God. These ought ye to have 
done. What I do reproach you for is that you 
content yourselves with this and omit the equally im- 
portant matters of justice and real love to God. 
You ought not to leave these undone/ " Christ com- 
mended tithing, and we should be slow to disregard 
what he commended. " What Christ commends is 
my command," says Dr. O. P. Gifford. 

Again, it is said that the New Testament rule for Giving as God 
giving is, " According as God hath prospered," but Has P 108 ** 1 ^ 
there is nothing in that rule that is out of harmony 
with tithing. The fact is that this same principle 
of giving according to the measure of prosperity was 
proclaimed just as clearly and strongly in the days 
when tithing laws were fully set forth. " Every 
man shall give as he is able, according to the bless- 
ing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee " 
(Deut. 16 : 17). No New Testament principle of 
grace, or voluntariness, or love, is violated by 
tithing. 



128 Stewardship and Missions 

J. P. Hobson " We are not under the law, but under grace ; 
the tithe we owe the Master is his, not ours ; but 
its payment is an act of love on our part, a privilege 
rich in blessings. The tithe is simply a measure he 
has given us in his word to let us know what our duty 
is, that we may know the minimum of what we ought 
to do. If in recognition of special blessings of God 
we would give something to him, we can make such 
free-will offerings as we please in addition to the 
tithe. The law is no longer a schoolmaster to com- 
pel us to tithe, but the duty remains and is made 
more sacred, being now like all other Christian 
duties, a matter not of law, but of love " (/. P. Hob- 
son). 
Rich and Poor It is objected that tithing makes inequality in giv- 
ing as between the poor and the rich. There is no 
ground for this objection when we regard the 
tenth as the minimum to be given. There are many 
who should give more than one-tenth. F. B. Meyer 
tells of a man whose income was ten thousand dol- 
lars a year, who lived on one thousand dollars, and 
gave nine thousand to the Lord's work. This is a 
fine way to reverse the tithing principle. Many could 
do this. The weakness of the objection is that it is 
usually made by the rich who hide behind the poor 
man because they do not want to give a tenth of 
their income to the Lord. The fact is, the poor, or 
those with small incomes, are the readiest to adopt 
tithing, and those who do adopt it are not complain- 
ing. Let us not complain for them. 



Stewardship and Tithing 



129 



Others object to tithing on the ground that they 
do not know what their incomes are. But could 
they not in some way find out? Suppose provision 
were made in some will to add one-tenth to their 
net incomes each year, would they not so manage 
their affairs that they would be able to make a 
clear and satisfactory statement as to what they 
were receiving? If a farmer was in partnership 
with some one, and each was to receive a certain 
portion of the proceeds of the farm, would not 
each person concerned manage to find out what his 
share was? 

There may be many other objections to tithing 
which are not covered by the above discussion. It 
is easy to make objections to what we do not 
want to do. The best way to deal with our objec- 
tions is to waive them for a time and put the matter 
to a test in our own experience. " Come and see," 
is a good answer to the objector. God challenges 
men to do this. " Prove me now herewith," is his 
message about tithing. Those who have put the 
matter to the test are unanimous and emphatic in 
their testimony as to the value and blessedness of 
tithing. They say, " I have greater satisfaction and 
joy in giving than I ever had before I began to 
tithe. I am more careful in using the nine-tenths, 
and get more good out of it than I did before. I 
always have something on hand for the Lord's 
work. The Lord has blessed me with increased 
prosperity." 



Finding What 
the Income Is 



Experience the 
Best Test 



130 



Stewardship and Missions 



Tithing 
and Debt 



Hard to Tithe 
Thousands 



Benefits 



A farmer died and left a farm to his sons on which 
there were debts amounting to six thousand dollars. 
The sons felt they could not give any of the pro- 
ceeds of the farm to the Lord till the debts were all 
paid. They cultivated the farm on that basis for 
three years. Then, from a study of the word of 
God, they agreed that they should give at least a 
tenth of the net proceeds to the Lord for his work. 
In the fourth year they paid more of the debts on 
the farm than they had in the other three years put 
together. " Them that honor me I will honor." 

Doctor Chadwick, of Leeds, England, tells of two 
brothers who formed a partnership in business 
and agreed to give ten per cent, of the profits to the 
Lord. The tide of prosperity rolled in. It was 
easy to give a hundred out of a thousand, or a 
thousand out of ten, but when it came to ten thou- 
sand out of a hundred thousand they felt the pinch. 
They said they were giving too much, they would 
give half as much hereafter. They divided their 
tenth in half, gave one-half and kept the other 
half themselves. That year their business fell off. 
In a few months they were bankrupt. They went to 
God in penitence and prayer, and as they knelt 
side by side they vowed to redeem their vow to 
the Lord. With this return to faithfulness to their 
pledge to tithe their income, the tide of prosperity 
turned to them again. 

The following are some of the benefits that 
accompany tithing. 



Stewardship and Tithing 



131 



It removes the element of uncertainty from giv- 
ing. Men who do not give proportionately, do not 
give with any certainty in their giving, as a rule. 
Tithing fixes a man's giving. He who tithes will 
give as long as he has an income to tithe. The 
tenth is laid aside without the impelling power of 
a special appeal. It is not a matter between him and 
the church, or between him and the missionary so- 
ciety, but a matter between him and his Lord and 
Master. He lays aside a tenth because of loyalty 
to what he believes his Lord wants him to do. He 
gives as a part of his regular Christian duty and 
service whenever he receives his income. He is not 
oblivious to information, inspiration, or appeals, 
but they affect his distribution of the Lord's portion, 
or lead him to give beyond the tenth. Tithing makes 
his giving certain. 

Tithing leads men to conform their expenditures 
to their giving. Tithers do not spend a large share 
of their income first, and then give something out of 
what is left. They usually lay aside the tenth at the 
outset. They make it a first lien on their income. 
The use of the balance is adjusted accordingly. 
The whole is thus sanctified by the part that has 
been definitely laid aside for the Lord. This is ad- 
ministered by him as a steward for God. Tithing 
safeguards a man from luxuriousness and extrava- 
gance in his personal living. The conscientious 
tither will make sacrifices in order that the Lord's 
portion may not be withheld or cut down. 



Makes Giving 
Certain 



Influence Upon 
Spending 



132 Stewardship and Missions 

A Help to Tithing fosters devotion to the cause of Christ, 
piriuaiy g ome ^ave contended that tithing makes giving 
formal and mechanical, and that it is a hindrance 
rather than a help to spirituality. Tithing may, of 
course, become a mere habit. So may prayer. So 
may any spiritual exercise. The facts are, however, 
that the continual practice of tithing holds the 
Christian in line with the movements of the kingdom 
of God, keeps him in constant touch with those 
movements as he distributes the tenth, and thereby 
his interest in, and devotion to, the great work God 
is doing in the world is fostered. Rev. F. O. Ballard 
says, " Tithing has been friendly to the spiritual life 
in those who practise it. An atmosphere is about 
it such as belongs to secret prayer." 
Thhers Increase Tithing begins in a definite forward step in con- 
ragtag 6 secration, and leads on to greater consecration. It 
is seldom easy for a man to begin to tithe his income. 
It involves so much that it requires a new exercise 
of faith and a little fuller surrender to Christ. 
Having begun, the tither goes on to greater things 
for God. He often becomes more active personally 
in the Lord's work. As he prospers he frequently 
increases the percentage of his giving. Thus the 
tither eventually becomes the most liberal and con- 
secrated of all givers, as hundreds who began tithing 
are to-day. 
Some Results Tithing would solve the problem of the financial 
needs of the church and missions. Where a group 
of men in a church begin to tithe their income the 






Stewardship and Tithing 133 

offerings are immediately increased. In one church 
twenty-seven tithers out of a total membership 
brought in one-fourth of the total amount of all 
contributions. Another church has a circle of forty- 
seven tithers. In the year before they began to tithe 
they gave $415.00. In the first six months of their 
tithing they gave $843.00. Thus they quadrupled 
their offerings. In another church forty-seven 
tithers gave in the year $2,587.91, a per capita of 
$61.62; one hundred and fifty-eight non-tithers 
gave $1,851.71, a per capita of $11.71. 

There is no system of giving that has ever been 
proposed that produces greater results than that 
which teaches that God is the owner of all things, 
that we are stewards of all that comes into our 
hands, and that one-tenth is the minimum that we 
should lay aside for the advancement of God's king- 
dom in the world. 

Even if there were no scriptural ground for tith- 
ing, it would be a most reasonable thing for Chris- 
tians to practise it. In view of God's infinite grace 
and mercy in Jesus Christ, and the love with which 
he fills every day of our lives ; in view of all the rich 
and countless blessings our heavenly Father is con- 
stantly bestowing upon us, and in view of the un- 
speakable blessedness and glory into which we are 
yet to come, surely it is a most reasonable thing that 
we should faithfully lay aside at least one-tenth of 
our income for God's great work in the world. Then 
let us pay our tithe, not as an inflexible iron rule, 



134 Stewardship and Missions 

with cold mathematical precision merely, but this 
much at least, lovingly and willingly, as a safe and 
certain step or beginning, to our larger stewardship. 



QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VI 

Aim : To Realize the Scriptural and Reasonable Place 
of Tithing in the Stewardship of Wealth 

i. Explain why some oppose tithing. 

2. What two extreme views are taken with respect to 

tithing ? 

3. On what ground has tithing a place in stewardship? 

4. How may the tithe be said to be representative of the 

whole ? 

5. What relation has stewardship administration to tithing? 

6. What general lessons are taught by the Scriptures that 

refer to tithing? 

7. What reasonable conclusions may be drawn from these 

Scriptures ? 

8. What is the first recorded instance of tithing in 

Scripture ? 

9. Name the circumstances under which Abraham gave a 

tenth. 

10. What is the first thing that is emphasized by the fact 

that Abraham tithed? 

11. In what respect is this an instance of the highest order 

of tithing? 

12. How is the paying of tithes to Christ suggested by 

Abraham's tithing? 

13. Does the fact that we are living in the Christian dis- 

pensation annul the principle of tithing for us? 

14. In what special way did Abraham's tithing differ from 

Jewish tithing? 



Stewardship and Tithing 135 

15. How would you answer the objection that tithing is not 

taught in the New Testament? 

16. What is the difference between the teaching of the 

Old and New Testaments on giving " as God has 
prospered " ? 

17. What bearing has this teaching on the question of 

tithing ? 

18. Is there any inequality in asking both rich and poor to 

tithe ? 

19. Who are usually the readiest to give a tenth? 

20. How would you answer those who say they cannot 

tithe because they do not know what their income is ? 

21. What is the most effective way to deal with the objec- 

tions that arise against tithing? 

22. What are the testimonies of those who have practised 

tithing ? 

23. Do you know any one who has practised tithing whose 

testimony is unfavorable to it? 

24. Give your opinion about a man tithing his income when 

he is in debt. 

25. Name some of the benefits that accompany tithing. 

26. How does tithing help spirituality and deepen interest 

in Christian work? 

27. If all the members of the church to which you belong 

gave a tenth of their income to the Lord's work, 
what do you think would be the result for the 
church and missions? 

28. Are you willing to make a tenth of your income the 

minimum of your giving? 

29. If you are convinced that Christ's followers should 

give not less than one-tenth of their income to him, 
what are you willing to do to induce others to do 
this? 



VII 



STEWARDSHIP METHODS IN THE 
CHURCH 



I have sometimes heard pastors of small churches excuse 
themselves from inciting their people to foreign mis- 
sionary zeal on the ground that their churches were small, 
and that their own position was humble and obscure. 
Many of our pastors always will be obscure and their 
churches poor, for the simple reason that they do not or 
will not discharge the high calling of missionary bishops 
and train and guide their people to take part in the evangel- 
ization of the world. —George F. Pentecost. 

Doctor Mackay, of Toronto, tells of a pastor in a Canadian 
town who could not induce his church to give more than 
eighty dollars a year to missions. He resolved that he would 
set the example for more generous things. His salary was 
seven hundred and fifty dollars. He subscribed seventy- 
five dollars toward the missionary work and that very year 
the missionary offering increased from eighty dollars to 
eight hundred dollars. Has there ever been a case where 
a pastor was on fire with enthusiasm for a cause and 
showed the genuineness of his convictions by a real life of 
self-denial for it, without his spirit becoming contagious 
and sooner or later taking possession of his people? 
Granted this, the pastor is bound to be a financial force 
for missions, not only directly but also through the members 
of the church, regardless of the methods which he 
employs. _/. r. Mott. 



VII 

STEWARDSHIP METHODS IN THE 
CHURCH 



" Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, tin- 
movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for- 
asmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the 
Lord" (i Cor. 15 : 58). 

STEWARDSHIP is peculiarly a matter for the 
church. To the church a stewardship of the 
gospel has been committed, in the church a sense 
of stewardship is to be developed, by the church 
faithful stewardship is to be manifested. It is 
true that those outside the church, those who have 
not become one with Christ through faith in him, 
have a stewardship for which they will be held 
accountable to God Even the ungodly are respon- 
sible for the use they make of the blessings God in 
his goodness bestows upon them, and every man 
shall give an account of his stewardship. But be- 
lievers are in a special way God's stewards. They 
have been entrusted with the gospel of the manifold 
grace of God for the good of the world. Neither 
angels in heaven, nor unconverted sinners on earth, 
are stewards in the sense that Christians are. The 
greatness of the responsibility involved in their 

139 



Stewardship of 
Christians and 
Non-Christians 



140 Stewardship and Missions 

stewardship can be understood only as Christians 
grasp fully all that is meant by the task the risen 
Christ has definitely laid upon them. It is exceed- 
ingly important therefore that God's children every- 
where should know their stewardship, and under a 
full consciousness of its responsibilities, should 
strive to be faithful to every duty which their stew- 
ardship brings to them. 
Churches that A development of a sense of stewardship in the 
To Missions churches is greatly needed. It is needed because 
so few realize their stewardship. Multitudes q£> 
church-members have evidently never thought that 
they had any obligation resting upon them to give 
the gospel to any of their fellow-men. If they have 
thought about it at all, they probably have supposed 
that it was only the business of ministers and mis- 
sionaries. At the Student Volunteer Convention, in 
Toronto, in 1902, it was reported that in four lead- 
ing denominations there were more than twelve 
thousand churches which gave nothing during the 
preceding year to foreign missions. John R. Mott 
says, " A careful investigation, involving confer- 
ences with the men best informed about the giving 
to religious enterprises in the different denomina- 
tions, warrants the statement that fully sixty per 
cent, of the communicants of the evangelical 
churches of North America, as a whole, give nothing 
to foreign missions." In one denomination in a 
single State one thousand churches gave nothing to 
missions of any kind in a recent year. In another 



Stewardship Methods in the Church 141 

State over five hundred gave nothing to missions. 
The average giving to missions in most of the de- 
nominations is pitiably small, made so, of course, 
by the fact that so many thousands give nothing. 
But even when the non-givers are not counted the 
offerings to missions are far below the ability of 
those who do give, and far short of the magnitude 
of the work to be done, and of the unparalleled 
opportunities to do the work. While some churches 
have grown in numbers and wealth, they have stood 
still in their giving to missions, their offerings are 
about the same now that they were fifteen or twenty 
years ago. Hundreds of churches have never seri- 
ously asked the question, " Are we, as a church, 
doing our full share in contributing to the work 
of world-wide evangelization ? " 

In an Association of churches with a total mem- Unreached 
bership of nearly six thousand, the offerings for 
foreign missions in a year amounted to only three 
hundred and twenty-one dollars. The offerings for 
home missions were still smaller, about ten cents per 
capita for a whole year to these two great objects. 
A church of six hundred and thirty members gave 
a total of seventy-seven dollars to home and foreign 
missions in a year. These facts, which might easily 
be multiplied, are sufficient evidence of the need of a 
stewardship awakening throughout the church. Few 
churches, if any, have reached their possibilities in 
consecrated giving for the spread of the gospel. 
As an example of what can be done when real in- 



Possibilities 



142 



Stewardship and Missions 



Disproportions 



V 



Horace Bushnell 
Quoted 



terest is created, a single church in the Association 
mentioned above gave one thousand two hundred 
dollars in the following year for the support of a 
missionary on the foreign field. This church could 
just as easily have done as much for years, and un- 
doubtedly would have if the matter had been pre- 
sented to it in a proper way before. Churches will 
do even heroic things when heroic things are set 
before them as the things to do. 

It is not because churches are not able to give 
that they do not undertake greater things for the 
advancement of the kingdom of God; it is chiefly 
because they have not been developed along steward- 
ship and missionary lines. Dr. A. T. Pierson tells 
of a church that spends three thousand dollars a 
year on its choir and averages one hundred and 
fifty dollars for foreign missions. Other instances 
of a like disproportion between what is done for the 
gratification of the church-members themselves, and 
what is done by them to help the Lord Jesus save 
a lost world, are on record. 

There is certainly need for a development of a 
real live consciousness of what is involved in our 
stewardship for God. " One more revival, only one 
more is needed," said Horace Bushnell, " the revival 
of Christian stewardship ; the consecration of the 
money power of the church to God, and when that 
revival comes the kingdom of God will come in a 
day; you can no more prevent it than you can hold 
back the tides of the ocean.' , 



Stewardship Methods in the Church 143 



That revival is not an impossibility. It can be 
brought about, and it will be when, led by the Spirit 
of God, the pastors and officers of the churches set 
their hearts upon bringing it about, and earnestly 
and persistently pray and work for it. 

The pastor holds the key to the situation. The 
church will be largely just what he, under God, 
makes it ; it will do what he, under the mighty power 
of the Holy Spirit, inspires it to do. The church 
will seldom, if ever, advance to a point beyond that 
at which the pastor has placed the standard. The 
pastor must therefore have clear conceptions of the 
truth himself, and understand what the will of the 
Lord is, if he would lead his people to the highest 
plane of consecration and achievement. Failure on 
his part to understand the truth or to grasp the 
situation will render it impossible for him to instruct 
the church or lead it on to the performance of duty. 

The pastor stands at the pivotal point in this crisis. 
If the church of Jesus Christ fails now to advance to 
a new endeavor to conquer the world for Christ, the 
pastors will be largely responsible. We have come 
to a time when some clarion call to the Christian 
ministry needs to be sounded all along the lines, until 
God's servants are stirred to faithfulness and zeal 
rin declaring to Christian people the whole counsel of 
God concerning the stewardship of money. Neither 
fear nor false modesty should be permitted for a 
single moment to cause the minister of the gospel to 
be silent on this question. The tremendous needs of 



A Possible 
Revival 



The Pastor and 
the Church 



Conditions 
Requiring 
Earnest Action 






144 Stewardship and Missions 

God's world-wide work at the present time, the 
boundless opportunities to push that work forward 
to the utmost requirements of Christ's commission, 
the increasing wealth now in the possession of 
Christian people who are called of God to be 
stewards, and the momentous issues for succeeding » 
generations depending on immediate action, im- 
peratively demand that the followers of Jesus Christ 
should everywhere surrender themselves to him in 
unreserved consecration, in order that they may per- 
form all the duties to which they are called as 
stewards who have been put in trust both with 
the gospel for every creature and with the means to 
send it to every creature. 
Much Work Already much is being done in this direction. 
Yet Needed p ast educational movements have not been fruitless. 
The churches are reaching a higher standard; 
but much, very much, needs yet to be done. 
Pastors The pastors of the churches in our day, as a body, 
Good Stewards are f aithful stewards. There is no class of men 
among whom can be found a larger percentage who 
are self-sacrificing for the cause of Christ. Many 
men in the Christian ministry possess qualifications 
in executive ability that would have carried them to 
a first place in the business world. In other spheres 
than those they occupy they might have amassed 
large sums of money. The world sneeringly charges 
men with being in the ministry for what they can get 
out of it ; but the truth is that those who receive the 
largest salaries could have doubled and trebled their 






Stewardship Methods in the Church 145 

incomes in business, while the average salary of all 
the others is so far below the average income in 
other callings and professions as to make the charge 
absurd. The Christian minister goes into the work 
not for what he can get out of it, but for what he 
can put into it. Many literally put in their all. 
They give themselves and all they possess. Out of a 
meager salary many a consecrated pastor gives to 
the Lord's work away beyond his wealthier brethren, 
both in amount and in percentage. He is often the 
first to make an offering when any special effort is 
being made to advance the kingdom of Christ. Com- 
paratively few pastors save any money. As faithful 
stewards they administer the substance God gives 
them in the interests of his kingdom. They not only 
give themselves to the work, but they invest finan- 
cially to the utmost of their ability. Instances 
of self-sacrifice to the point of heroism are not in- 
frequent among those who have been called to the 
sacred and exalted office of the Christian ministry. 
If as large a percentage of the lay members of the 
church were faithfully meeting the obligations of 
stewardship, there would be little necessity for a dis- 
cussion of this subject. All the needs of the church 
would be met. 

But there are exceptions. All pastors are not Exceptions 
faithful in either preaching or practising the prin- 
ciples of Christian stewardship. There are pastors 
whose example is a hindrance rather than a help to 
the spirit of beneficence among the people to whom 

K 






146 Stewardship mid Missions 

they minister. They do not attempt to develop 
that spirit. They never bring before their churches 
the claims of God as the owner of all things, nor do 
they stimulate interest in what God is doing through- 
out the world by bringing before the people the soul- 
stirring facts about the work. They do not preach 
on missions nor appeal to the people to give to mis- 
sions lest the income of the local church should be 
lessened and they should have to go without their 
salary as a consequence. Such pastors make a most 
fatal mistake — fatal for themselves and fatal for 
the people to whom they minister. For if they 
wanted to dry up the spirit of liberality in the local 
church and keep its finances in an unsatisfactory 
condition, and their own salaries at a low figure and 
only half paid at that, they could scarcely devise a 
scheme which would be more certain to secure these 
results. 
A Storywith " A clergyman told his congregation in one of the 
Western States that owing to the hard times they had 
been passing through he was going to relieve them 
by not asking them for a missionary collection that 
year. Next year his salary dropped to $1,500, then 
to $1,200, and he had to live on that. The year 
after they could not get above $1,000, and he had 
to get out — starved out. They called another man, 
offering him $1,200. He started out by preaching 
to them the great needs of God's work of missions. 
His salary went up next year to $1,500, then to 
$1,800, and the next year to $2,000, and the church 



Stewardship Methods in the Church 147 



gave last year $6,000 for the spread of the gospel " 
(/. Campbell White). 

The people are not more faithful in their steward- 
ship because they have not been trained to be. 
They do no better than they know. The planning 
and working of a comprehensive scheme of educa- 
tion in the principles of Christian stewardship is 
one of the essential things to be done in order to 
bring about the needed revival. This scheme of 
education should aim to reach the children in the 
Sunday-school, the young people in their society, 
and the adult members of the church. It should in- 
clude sermons on the subject, several each year, with 
stewardship truths constantly woven into the ser- 
mons that are not devoted wholly to the subject. 

Literature should be freely distributed, and dis- 
tributed in such a way as to do effective service in 
every family in the church. There should be several 
prayer meetings in the year given up to a prayerful 
consideration of this subject. This work of educa- 
tion cannot be accomplished by an occasional refer- 
ence to stewardship or missions. It must go on all 
the time, and must reach every department of the 
church's life. We must begin with the boys and 
girls in the home and in the Sunday-school, and 
then keep right on until those same boys and girls 
become men and women, and have graduated into 
consecrated stewards for God, and are pouring tens 
of thousands of dollars into the treasuries of the 
kingdom. 



A Campaign of 

Education 



Stewardship 
and Missionary 



148 



Stewardship and Missions 



Planning the 

Work and 

Working the 

Plan 



Weekly Giving 
to Missions 



A very important part of this training will be 
the adoption of the very best methods for making 
contributions for local church support and for mis- 
sions. No slipshod plan will secure adequate results. 
The best plan in the world will be fruitless unless 
it is properly managed and worked. Mr. John R. 
Mott has stated the case clearly and strongly as 
follows : " The pastor should see that a comprehen- 
sive financial plan and policy is adopted, covering 
the entire range of church benevolences, and that a 
thoroughly efficient organization is effected for 
carrying out the plan. In this organization the serv- 
ices of men of the best business judgment, who are 
also in sympathy with the missionary outreach of 
the church, should be utilized. The reason why so 
many churches accomplish so little for the world's 
evangelization is because they have not enlisted the 
leadership of men combining business sense and 
missionary spirit. Let those responsible for the 
missionary policy of the church adopt a minimum 
missionary budget for the year." 

This policy should include weekly giving to mis- 
sions on the part of all the members as the scrip- 
tural, and sensible, and best method for the church 
to enable it to contribute its full share to the great 
missionary enterprise. The majority of church- 
members receive weekly wages, or have ordinary 
incomes. They cannot give a large amount at any 
one time, but the amount they can give weekly would 
make a fine total for the year. Thus they will not only 



Stewardship Methods in the Church 149 

give more, and do it with greater comfort to them- 
selves, but by this plan the grace and habit of giving 
will be cultivated. The plan of annual offerings 
ought to be regarded as obsolete, and made so. It 
never has met the needs of the work, while it has in- 
volved the paying of thousands of dollars in interest 
for borrowed money by the missionary societies 
while they were waiting for the annual offerings to 
come in. " The annual offering plan is an affront 
to God," says J. Campbell White. Weekly giving 
to missions is the Pauline plan, and if generally 
adopted, would furnish a constant stream of money 
for missions, would result in a vast increase in con- 
tributions, and would constantly emphasize and help 
develop true Christian stewardship in the church. 

The financial policy of the church should include Giving in the 
the Sunday-school. Here the future members of Sunday-school 
the church receive their training. The methods 
adopted in the Sunday-school will either make it 
easier or more difficult to secure the best results in 
the church in time. Many churches now furnish all 
the supplies for their schools, and all the offerings 
in those schools go to missions. In this way, and 
through missionary teaching and information, a 
missionary spirit is developed, a sense of steward- 
ship is inspired, and the boys and girls come into 
the church already in line with its missionary ac- 
tivities, and ready to assume their responsibilities 
as church-members in the work of world-wide 
evangelization. Weekly giving to missions by the 



150 Stewardship and Missions 

use of duplex envelopes in the Sunday-school, as 
in the church, is now being introduced with gratify- 
ing results. Where the church provides for the 
proper training of its children in giving to missions 
there will be a larger percentage of its members 
who will be regular contributors to the great work 
than is generally the case to-day. 
Indirect Methods In the development of a sense of stewardship in 
*" the church all indirect methods of raising money 

for the Lord's work should be abolished. There 
is probably nothing that has done more to prevent 
the church from reaching its high possibilities in its 
offerings for the extension of the kingdom than 
indirect methods of money raising. Wide observa- 
tion has convinced the writer that hundreds of 
churches are to-day in debt, crippled and weak 
both financially and spiritually, because they have 
tried to meet the expenses of their work by suppers 
and sales and entertainments of all sorts. There 
is abundant testimony to show that when churches 
have ceased to lean on these methods they have 
made greater progress. The indirect method should 
be abandoned everywhere for the following reasons : 
It has no scriptural justification. In most cases it 
does not pay as a business proposition, people put 
more in than they get out for the work. It is in 
many instances an unfair treatment of the business 
men of the community, while the pestering of people 
to buy tickets becomes a nuisance and an annoyance. 
It hinders the development of a true stewardship 



Stewardship Methods in the Church 151 

and destroys spirituality. Worst of all, it lowers 
the dignity of the church of Jesus Christ in the eyes 
of the outside world. No church can afford to con- 
tinue the use of methods that have been so futile, 
and that have wrought such havoc throughout the 
church. 

There is still another essential that must be taken Prayer an 
into account if the church is to reach its full stew- ^ ssentia * 
ardship in its gifts for the spread of the gospel 
throughout the world. There must be prayer. " All 
church problems are at bottom problems of spiritual 
temperature." Prayer brings the soul into sympa- 
thetic fellowship with the Spirit of God, the spiritual 
temperature is thereby raised, and consecrated stew- 
ardship with increased offerings follows. 

There has been far too little prayer, and far too A Stewardship 
little recognition of the power of the Holy Spirit, PrayerMeeting 
in connection with the financial needs and operations 
of the church. How seldom is a prayer meeting 
devoted to the money matters of the kingdom. We 
pray over every part of the work but this. When 
a financial crisis comes in the history of the church 
every sort of plan and scheme is thought of, and 
discussed, but scarcely ever are the people called 
together to spread the need before God in prayer, 
and to seek deliverance from him whose resources 
are infinite and inexhaustible. 

" If we were as anxious about enlisting the prayers John R. Mott 
of Christians as we are about securing their money, Qv ote< * 
and if we made the obtaining of funds as much a 



152 Stewardship and Missions 

matter of prayer as we are in the habit of making 
this a subject of discussions and planning, we would 
have all the money needed for carrying on our mis- 
sionary work " (John R. Mott, in " The Pastor and 
Modern Missions "). 
Great If there is to be a wide-spread manifestation of 
AC Depe^d e on consecrated stewardship in the church in these 
Prayer momentous days of wonderful missionary oppor- 
tunity both at home and abroad, if the giving of 
God's people is to be on a scale at all adequate to 
the greatness of the need, there must be more than 
a study of missions, or of stewardship — there must 
be much, very much, earnest persevering prayer. 
There must be prayer that God will awaken his 
people to a sense of their stewardship, there must 
be prayer that God will raise up men and women 
who will consecrate themselves to a missionary 
career at home in the administration of wealth for 
his cause, and there must be prayer that God may be 
pleased to turn the currents of abundance and 
prosperity into the great and numerous channels of 
his kingdom that every need may be supplied, and 
that the utmost purpose of Christ in his Great Com- 
mission may be fully and speedily accomplished. 
The Need of the " The question of finance," says Dr. John Hump- 
y pmt stone, " is a question of the Holy Spirit. Given 
pentecostal blessing, and pentecostal consecration 
will follow. No one but the Holy Spirit can incite 
souls to that degree of faith which will lead them to 
set at defiance the dictates of selfishness, the maxims 



Stezvardship Methods in the Church 153 

of worldly policy, and the suggestions of over- 
cautious prudence." All our knowledge of what 
we ought to do as Christian stewards will profit 
little unless the Holy Spirit converts knowledge 
into action. 

It is told of J. Hudson Taylor that on one oc- J. Hudson 
casion, when he had made a strong presentation of Taylor s Method 
China's needs, he declined to take any collection, 
but asked his hearers to go home and prayerfully 
consider what their duty was. The chairman of 
the meeting happened to be Mr. Taylor's host, and 
he remonstrated that he had lost an opportunity. 
But the next morning, handing Mr. Taylor a check 
for a large amount, he remarked that he was now 
persuaded of the propriety of his course, acknowl- 
edging that, had he given at the time he would have 
given a very small amount, but that after prayerful 
weighing of the matter he had seen his whole duty. 
It would not generally be wise to decline to receive 
an offering when the hearts of the people are stirred, 
and their consciences are awakened, but it should 
always be insisted that men should pray about their 
giving. Pastors should frequently call the attention 
of their people to the missionary budgets of their 
denomination, and of the local church, and have 
them pray that the money needed might be given. 

There is a mission for every person who has Producing a 
studied the subject of Christian stewardship, in his ^^^lf 0Ti 
or her own church, in awakening the interest of 
others in this great and vital theme. Those espe- 



154 Stewardship and Missions 

cially who are just forming their financial habits 
should be reached, and earnest efforts should be 
put forth in all parts of the land so to teach and 
train a host of young people that they will become a 
new and mighty generation of stewards, who will far 
outstrip all who have gone before them in the 
splendor and munificence of their consecrated giv- 
ing to the cause of their all-glorious Lord, and who 
will thereby mightily hasten the ushering in of his 
kingdom in all its power and glory. 



QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VII 

Aim : To Learn What May Be Done in the Church to 
Create a Deeper Sense of Stewardship and Better 
Methods of Expressing it 

i. What is the difference between the stewardship of 
Christians and non-Christians? 

2. Why should special efforts be made in the churches 

to develop a sense of stewardship ? 

3. What percentage of church-members give nothing to 

missions? 

4. What evidence is there that churches generally are 

not striving to reach their possibilities in giving? 

5. Name some reasons why churches do not give more to 

missions. 

6. How may a revival of Christian stewardship be brought 

about ? 

7. How much depends upon the pastor in bringing about 

such a revival, and how much upon the members 
of the church? 

8. Why should special efforts be made at the present time 



Stewardship Methods in the Church 155 

to awaken Christians to a sense of their steward- 
ship? 
9. How do pastors compare with others in their devotion 
as stewards? 

10. How do some pastors fail in their stewardship ? 

n. Outline a campaign of stewardship education for the 
church. 

12. What else would you suggest as helpful in such a cam- 

paign ? 

13. In what ways are right methods important in develop- 

ing the church's beneficence? 

14. Name some qualifications leaders must have to secure 

success in working any plan. 

15. What would you do if you were a pastor and none of 

your members possessed these qualifications? 

16. What arguments are there in favor of weekly giving 

to missions? 

17. Why should Sunday-schools give systematically to 

missions? 

18. What is your opinion of indirect methods of money 

raising? 

19. What place has been given to prayer in the money 

matters of the kingdom? 

20. Why should prayer be given a larger place in the 

church's financial operations? 

21. What more is necessary to produce results than a 

knowledge of our duty as stewards? 

22. What fields should be especially cultivated in order to 

produce a new and better generation of stewards? 

23. What would you suggest might be done in your church 

to bring about a more faithful stewardship and to 
better the financial work of the church? 



VIII 

STEWARDSHIP POSSIBILITIES AND 
REWARDS 



If some splendid undertaking of colossal proportions 
should move the churches to real sacrifice, there would 
practically be no limit to available funds. Sometimes 
it is easier to do a great thing than to do a small thing. 
It is the great enterprise which furnishes a great motive, 
arouses a great enthusiasm, and moves to great effort 
and sacrifice. —Josiah Strong. 

Each Christian will be held to strict account for his 
stewardship. Christ had most severe denunciations for 
unfaithful stewards. There is, indeed, need of a finer sense 
of moral obligation with reference to our financial relation 
to God. When his followers observe the same clear rules 
of honest dealing in their transactions with him which they 
regard as imperative in dealing with their fellow-men — 
that is, regard and treat as belonging to the treasury of 
heaven all that they have, the financial problem involved 
in the world's evangelization will be eliminated. 

— John R. Mott. 

There are thousands of Christians who do not hesitate 
to incur personal expenditures for a hundred times the 
amount they give to foreign missions. 

— Arthur J. Brown. 



VIII 

STEWARDSHIP POSSIBILITIES AND 
REWARDS 



"And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; 
that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything may 
abound unto every good work" (2 Cor. 9:8). 

"What is this I hear about thee? Render the account 
of thy stewardship" (Luke 16 : 2). 



Another 
Kadesh-Bamea 



THE church in America stands at another Ka- 
desh-Barnea. Will she go forward or turn 
back? Under the Divine leadership, with every 
provision necessary to make victory possible, will 
she be true to her Lord, true to her exalted mission, 
true to the millions who need the message of which 
she is the appointed steward, and go up at once and 
possess the land; or, under a paralyzing spirit of 
selfishness and worldliness, will she in unbelief turn 
her back on her high privilege, forfeit the blessings 
a gracious and merciful God has put within her 
reach, and postpone the world's evangelization for 
many years? 

" Something must be done. Something will be Alternatives 
done." To stand still is impossible. Christian 
men and women will either understand and appreci- 

i59 



160 Stewardship and Missions 

ate more fully than ever the privileges and re- 
sponsibilities of their all-inclusive stewardship, and 
as a result will gladly and faithfully devote them- 
selves to acquire, and use, and give great wealth for 
the great purpose of extending their Redeemer's 
kingdom among men; or, remaining in ignorance 
of their high calling as God's stewards, or ignoring 
it when they know it, they will make and use money 
for selfish and vainglorious ends, rob the Lord their 
God of millions that should be freely yielded to his 
service, and thereby be responsible for the con- 
tinuance of countless thousands under the power of 
darkness and sin. One or the other will be done. 
There must be more generous, self-sacrificing, and 
large-scaled giving, or there will be more sinful and 
self-indulgent grasping and spending. This issue 
cannot be avoided. Believers everywhere must 
gravitate toward one of these two points. Toward 
which will it be? 
Well Able It is not a question of ability, it is purely a ques- 
tion of faithful stewardship. As Caleb and Joshua 
said at the former Kadesh-Barnea, so we may say, 
" We are well able." God has put sufficient means 
into our hands to do the work. The church is 
abundantly able to evangelize the world in this gen- 
eration so far as the money necessary to do the work 
is concerned, but have we of this generation the love 
for Christ, and the faith in him, which will move us 
to such a true stewardship of wealth that the 
work will be done ? Here in America there must be 



to Do 



Stewardship Possibilities and Rewards 161 

the greatest manifestation of this stewardship, for 
here there are the greatest accumulations of wealth 
in the world. " For the ten years from 1890 to 1900 
the average daily increase of our wealth was $6,- 
400,000. During the first four years of this century 
the average daily increase was nearly $13,000,000, or 
twice as great. According to the estimates of the 
Treasury Department, wealth in the United States 
increased over $18,586,000,000 from 1900 to 1904. 
If now the members of our evangelical churches re- 
ceived their full share, which they doubtless did; 
and if they should give not one-tenth of their income, 
but one-tenth of their unexpended income — one- 
tenth of their increase — for those four years, they 
would contribute about $400,000,000. That is, with- 
out denying themselves one iota of their usual ex- 
penditure, without sacrificing one item of accus- 
tomed luxury, by giving one-tenth of their savings 
for four years they could equal our home missionary 
offerings for the preceding century "(Josiah Strong, 
in "The Challenge of the City"). 

The people can do great things. A terrible earth- Relieving 
quake and fire destroy a great city, and a third of a ^'^„ 
million are in dire distress. Within a few weeks 
twenty million dollars is sent for the relief of San 
Francisco sufferers. As large an amount given for 
the relief of physical suffering in a spontaneous 
offering as the entire membership of the church 
throughout the world gave, under a multitude of ap- 
peals, in a whole year, to send the light of the gospel 

L 



Suffering 



1 62 Stewardship and Missions 

and the bread of eternal life to three thousand times 
as many people who are perishing in their sins. 
Examples of We have seen what the people can and will do 
vmg when they become thoroughly informed concerning 
the work, and are fully taught concerning their 
stewardship. Illustrations might be multiplied. A 
Congregational church of three hundred members in 
Lee, Mass., gives over $4,200 annually to home and 
foreign missions and other benevolent objects, an 
average of $14.00 per member. A Presbyterian 
church in Blairstown, of two hundred members, 
gives on an average $5.00 to foreign missions alone. 
The Baptist church in Bloomfield, N. J., contributed, 
in 1907, an average of $6.40 per member for home 
and foreign missions, while the Sunday-school gave 
$1,100 to missions and benevolences. If in some 
churches, whose members do not possess more than 
ordinary financial ability, an average of $5.00 per 
member can be given to the cause of missions, then 
in multitudes of other churches that average could 
be maintained. 
Laymen's The watchword of the Laymen's Missionary 
Movement might well become the watchword of 
every Protestant church throughout the land — 
" We can do it, and we will." 
The Chief The principal emphasis needs to be placed on the 
mp ^ practice of stewardship in business. When Chris- 
tian business men very generally regard their busi- 
ness as a part of the kingdom of God, and that they 
are just as definitely called to work for the further- 



Stewardship Possibilities and Rewards 163 



ing of the kingdom as are those who devote them- 
selves to preaching the gospel, either at home or 
abroad, then the kingdom will come in power. Then 
will the money power be controlled for Christianity. 
Then will Christian business men be simply business 
agents for the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the 
greatest business that has ever been undertaken. 

What incentives there are to stir men to faithful Incentives 
stewardship ! Think of the spiritual enrichment that 
will come. In what inspiring fellowship with the 
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, will the 
Christian business man carry on his enterprises day 
by day, who conducts his business as a steward for 
God. To what high levels will all life be lifted when 
money spending becomes religious, and men and 
women are dominated by the purpose in all their 
money using to honor their Lord. Think of the 
development of character, the separateness from a 
worldly life, and the influence of a true stewardship 
life upon a skeptical and scoffing world. What the 
world is waiting to see is a Christianity that goes 
into the everyday lives of men in real power. A 
genuine stewardship would produce just such a 
Christianity. Think of the enlarged service that 
would be rendered for the uplifting and salvation 
of humanity, and above all, think of the sweet joy 
and satisfaction of at last hearing the Master say, 
" Well done, good and faithful servant ! " 

There is need for a great company of flaming A Campaign for 
apostles of stewardship who will go up and down Young People 



164 Stewardship and Missions 

the land proclaiming this message and enlisting mul- 
titudes of their fellows in a definite committal to 
live stewardship lives. No greater work could be 
done by the young people of to-day than that they 
should inaugurate and push into every corner of 
the land a crusade for the faithful stewardship of 
wealth in the interests of the kingdom of God. It is 
in the power of the young people to save the situ- 
ation for the future. In twenty years, according to 
the present rate of increase, there will be fifty billion 
dollars in the hands of those who are now the young 
Christians of the church. If they are to be true 
to the great responsibilities which this enormous sum 
of money will involve, they must be taught now how 
to be true stewards. Some one must teach them. 
Why should not a host of young people, who have 
themselves become interested, be the leaders in such 
a crusade? What greater service for the cause of 
missions could be rendered? 

Some closing considerations should lead to earnest 
heart searching and prayer. 
A Serious it is a solemn thing to be a steward. It is a 
serious business to have and handle silver and gold 
that belong to the Creator of all things, the Judge 
of all the earth. If it is a crime for the cashier of a 
bank to embezzle money from the deposits made ; if 
it is a crime for an executor of an estate to appro- 
priate for his own use funds held in trust for 
another; if it is an injustice for an employer to 
hold back from his employees wages which are due 



Stewardship Possibilities and Rewards 165 



them ; what must be said about him who, either wil- 
fully or inadvertently, becomes guilty of embezzle- 
ment as a steward for God ? The terrible possibility 
intensifies the solemnity of being put in trust with 
money of which the eternal God is the absolute 
owner. 

The Lord Jesus has taught that our eternal destiny 
is affected by the use we make of the possessions 
placed in our hands. Riches may prevent a man's 
salvation. " It is easier for a camel to go through 
the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter 
into the kingdom of God" (Mark 10 : 25). " He 
also that received seed among the thorns is he that 
heareth the word; and the care of this world, and 
the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he 
becometh unfruitful" (Matt. 13 : 22). Many a 
man's money is standing between his soul and his 
Saviour. The bars which keep many out of the 
kingdom of God are made of silver and gold. The 
unfaithful steward may gain the world but lose his 
own soul. 

Nor do the penalties which result from the misuse 
of the sacred trust of money fall upon men only 
in eternity. Men are gainers or losers now accord- 
ing as they are faithful or unfaithful to the trust 
which has been committed to them. The way in 
which a man uses money affects his character. 
Many a man is what his money has made him. If 
he has honored the Lord with his substance, if he 
has put his money to the highest and noblest uses, 



Eternal Destiny 
Affected 



Present 
Consequences 



1 66 Stezvardship and Missions 

his money has helped in the development of a kind 
and generous, and at the same time, a strong and 
noble character. But if, on the other hand, he has 
graspingly hoarded his money, or lavishly spent it 
in luxurious living, it has fostered selfishness and 
covetousness and pride, and made the man narrow 
and unsympathetic and dwarfed in every element of 
true manliness. Doctor Cuyler says : " What a 
young man earns in the day goes into his pocket; 
what he spends in the evening goes into his char- 
acter." Alas, that in the transmutation the gold, 
silver, and precious stones of wealth so often become 
wood, hay, and stubble in the man. Money brings 
its penalty when misused, as it brings its reward 
when properly used. Stewards are reckoned with 
even on earth. 
A Test There is another way also in which stewards are 
reckoned with. The stewardship of money is made 
the test which decides how much will be committed 
to them of the true riches, the riches which are 
of the Spirit of God, and which abide forever. " He 
that is faithful in the least," that is, in the material 
substance committed to him, " is faithful also in 
much," that is, in the spiritual blessings bestowed 
upon him. " And he that is unrighteous in the least 
is unrighteous also in much. If therefore ye were 
not faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will 
entrust to you the true riches? And if ye were 
not faithful in that which is another's," the pe- 
cuniary and other means which are only entrusted 



Stewardship Possibilities and Rewards 167 

to us, " who will give to you your own ? " — those 
eternal riches which become the abiding possession 
of the saints, and which, more than anything else 
they can ever have, may be spoken of as their own. 
" The heavenly good incorporated with the immortal 
spirit " is " your own." The Supreme Owner of 
all things is keeping a strict account of the doings 
of the stewards of his silver and gold, and forests 
and fields, and cattle, and as they are faithful or 
unfaithful, he commits to them, or withholds from 
them, the true riches which endure for ever. The 
right use of money tends to spiritual enrichment, 
the wrong use of money to spiritual poverty. 
There is a present reckoning and a present reward. 

Christian stewardship has its final issue in the The Final 
reckoning before Him for whom men have been omng 

stewards. The wage-earner and the millionaire, 
the one who had the least committed to him and the 
one who had the most, each must stand before the 
judgment seat of Christ and have *heir gettings and 
their givings, their accumulations and their expen- 
ditures, their motives and their methods, brought 
under the searching scrutiny of him whose eyes are 
as a flame of fire. All wrong ways of getting 
money, all fraud and dishonesty and oppression, 
together with all wrong ways of using and spending 
money, will be laid bare in that day. All with- 
holding from God, all selfishness and covetousness, 
all wastefulness and extravagance, all spending of 
money to gratify pride or sensual desires, will be 



1 68 Stewardship and Missions 

seen in the light of the eternal throne, and no cloak 
of respectability or religiousness, no paltry excuse, 
such as is so often made by those who do not give, 
will be able to conceal or extenuate any blemish or 
flaw in any man's stewardship. Every man will be 
rewarded according as his works have been. 
Fidelity On the other hand, all diligence and fidelity in 

R A A 

ewara ^e service of God as his stewards, all getting and 
giving for God's glory, all prayerfulness and conse- 
cration, all unselfishness and liberality and self- 
sacrifice, whether by those who have had little, or 
by those who had much, will be remembered by the 
Lord of those servants. 
Well Done Blessed indeed shall those stewards be to whom 
it shall be said when the King comes to reckon with 
them : " Well done, good and faithful servant : thou 
wast faithful over a little, I have set thee over 
much ; enter into the joy of thy Lord." 

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VIII 

Aim : To Stimulate to an Immediate Application of 
Stewardship Principles, and to the Promotion of a 
General Stewardship Campaign of Education 

i. What crisis confronts the church in connection with her 
service ? 

2. Name the alternatives before Christian men and 

women. 

3. What will influence men one way or the other? 

4. What could the church accomplish if it really tried? 

5. Why do we give more willingly and freely to relieve 

physical suffering than spiritual need? 



Stewardship Possibilities and Rewards 169 

6. What averages have some churches reached in their 

giving to missions? 

7. What average per member do you think could be 

given generally to missions? 

8. Where does the chief emphasis need to be placed in a 

practical application of stewardship principles, and 
why? 

9. What incentives are there to faithful stewardship? 

10. Which of these incentives is of greatest value? 

11. Why should the young people devote themselves to a 

stewardship awakening? 

12. What could young people do in a stewardship campaign 

of education? 

13. Why is it a serious matter to be God's steward? 

14. Mention the temporal or eternal loss that may result 

from unfaithful stewardship. 

15. How are men losers now if they are not faithful 

stewards ? 

16. What relation does the use of earthly riches have to the 

heavenly riches into which we hope to come? 

17. How should the fact of the final accounting affect our 

present service as stewards? 

18. Describe your present sense of obligation as a Chris- 

tian steward. 

19. What is the most important lesson that has come to 

you in these studies? 

20. Are you acting now in harmony with your best con- 

victions concerning your own stewardship? 

21. In what way can your best resolves be safeguarded and 

made real in your life? 



170 Stewardship and Missions 

As the literature on the subject of stewardship is not 
very abundant, it has not been possible to give a list of 
publications for further study after each chapter. The 
following list is therefore given here : 

Mott : " The Pastor and Modern Missions." 
Heuver : " The Teachings of Jesus Concerning Wealth." 
Murray : " Money, Thoughts for God's Stewards." 
Waffle : " Christianity and Property." 
Strong : " Money and the Kingdom." 
Schauffler : " Money, Its Nature and Power." 
Griffith-Jones : " The Economics of Jesus." 
Cook : " Systematic Giving." A prize essay. 
There are many smaller pamphlets and tracts on tithing 
and other phases of stewardship, which may be obtained 
from the Boards of the various missionary societies, or 
from the publication houses of the different denominations. 



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